Hiking In Korea

Koreans love to hike and they love to buy hiking gear.  Even if they are going for what we would consider "a walk" the Koreans will get dressed in expensive hiking gear all the way down to the hiking poles.  Many times it makes Russ and I laugh because they have hundreds of dollars worth of high-tech hiking clothing on and we have a bottle of water and some Nikes.

Knowing this we were not sure what to expect when we were invited to go hiking with some Koreans that partner with Russ' unit.  (Many of the military units here partner up with local Korean business people in order to form good relationships between the community and the military.  This program is called the Good Neighbor Program-GNP.  The Marines' have a very active GNP.  They typically have a GNP outing once a month to various places all over Seoul.  Over our next 3 years we will do many activities with the GNP and you will hear a lot about it.)  So we laced up our Nikes, filled our water bottles and headed out to the meeting place.  We took a bus about an hour outside of Seoul to a mountain called

Easier to take a picture then try to write it down.

It was a beautiful day for a hike and the scenery was breathtaking.  We hiked along an old fortress wall up to a command post.

There were about 20 American and about 10 Koreans with us on the hike.

Lucy taking some pictures.  She is a great photographer.  It is fun to see the world through "Lucy's eyes".

Taking a break to check out the view.

Unfortunately it was a little hazy that day which made it difficult to see far.

This is the Republic of Korea (ROK) Marine Commandant's wife.  Since I have been in Korea I have met both the US Marine Commandant's wife and the ROK Commandant's wife. 

After the hike we had a very Korean lunch and watched a traditional Korean performance.

It was a good day for our family.  We love to hike and will do many more hikes in the next months as the weather cools and the leaves change.

Monster Cupcake

"Korean Things We Love-Part 1"

Aloe Vera Juice--it is very sweet and has small pieces of aloe floating in it.  They are a little bit chewy but very small and easy to swallow.  I'm sure it has a bunch of sugar in it, but anything that has bits of a plant in it has to be healthy...right?  If we stop at a convenience store on a hot day to get a drink, this is most often what I will pick.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently I was looking for something for the girls and I to do during an upcoming half day of school and I stumbled upon a blog that talked about a place called Monster Cupcake.  I love cupcakes so I started to do some research.  I was really excited to find out the place was within walking distance of our house.

My friend and I decided to take our kids out to McD's for lunch before we headed out on our little adventure.

Even though he is much younger then Taylor and Lucy, they love him like a little brother.

My girls are really into photo bombing right now.  Taylor had no idea Lucy was in the background.

The walk to the cupcake shop was just down the hill from our house.

Isn't this just a precious picture?

We found it without any problems.  It was a very small shop--so small the 5 of us filled it up and there was only enough inside seating for the 3 kids.  But what the shop lacked in size it definitely made up for in ambiance.  The best word to describe the shop is quirky.  I had read that the cupcakes are decorated for the upcoming holiday, so right now they all had a Halloween-sh theme.

Yep, that is a cupcake with a severed finger on it.

An eyeball and a monster cupcake.

Russ and I often joke that in Korea they will take any English words and put them together than screen print it on a shirt.  They most often make no sense together, but they are just a hodge-podge of words.  (If I could take pictures of people's shirts without them thinking I'm a freak, I would start another blog series on here, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.)  Anyways, the decorations in this little shop reminded me of the t-shirts in this country.  It was a big mix that didn't really go together. 

Ghostbuster, Monsters, Inc., cats and dogs

Chucky with a Hello Kitty watch on and cupcake in front of him

This was her shelf of cake decorating items.

Even the forks had cute faces on them.

We got a few different cupcake to try.  They were just ok, Koreans don't like their cakes nearly as sweet as Americans do, so even though they look the same they didn't have the rich taste that we were expecting.

I got a red velvet, the girls got chocolate and we picked out a lemon to take home.

Excited to dig into their cupcakes.

"Mom, take a picture of me grossed out by the worm on top of my cupcake."

My friend and I with our cupcakes.

For a drink they sold "Monster Blood"(just kool-aid and sprite mixed) in all different colors/flavors.  It was pretty cool and the girls loved it.

Maybe closer to Christmas we will go back to see if she has any different cupcakes.

A More "American" Adventure

First, did you see the new blog title?  I'm sure you figured it translates to Pound Family Adventures in Korean.  I had my good Korean friend even check it out for me and she said it was correct.

Second, I'm going to start a few posts that I will do in parts when I get some good pictures.  One post will be "Funny Signs in Korea", another will be "Things You Would Only Find In Korea", another will be "Korean Things We Love" and maybe there will be some more.

Today I will do "Funny Signs In Korea Part 1":
I was recently in an amusement park bathroom and when I looked up I saw this sign:

Now, we can all tell without being able to read a word of it what the sign's meaning is.  It is telling you the proper way to use the toilet.   I can understand the first x...they want you to sit down.  Being that it was in an amusement park I can also understand the second x...no barfing in the toilet (of course, I have no idea where they would rather you barf).  Korean bathrooms will often have a squat potty instead of a sit down toilet in their bathrooms, and so knowing this I can somewhat understand the third x...no squatting over the toilet.  But it was the fourth and fifth x's that really threw me for a loop.  Who in the world would ever fish in a toilet?  And what in the world is that person in the fifth x doing?  I'm sure it freaked people out that I was taking pictures in the bathroom, but I didn't care that sign was way to funny to pass up.
Oh, and just in case you see anyone fishing in the toilet there is a phone number to call at the bottom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, now on to my real post.  After my Bau House post I got a lot of comments along the lines of "That place looks crazy and I don't want to go there when I visit".  So I thought that for my adventure this week I would post about something a little more "American".  What is more American than baseball and roller coasters?  We did both of those things this past weekend.  I will save the roller coaster adventure for another post and tell you about the baseball today.

Right after we first got here a bunch of people told us how fun the baseball games in Korea were.  Koreans and Americans both told us to be sure and not miss the chance to go see a game.  Russ and I were a bit skeptical.  We aren't baseball fans at all and both of us tend to get bored when we have attended games in the past.  But after being told by numerous different people we decided to give in to the peer pressure and go see a game.

While it is possible to buy tickets ahead of time, most people just buy their tickets at the window before the game.  Not being able to speak very much Korean often lends to some difficult situations where we use "pointy talky" to help us get by.  Russ used a lot of "pointy talky" when he was buying the tickets.

The tickets are really cheap to games.  We bought the second best level of seats and the tickets were only about 11.00 each.  There are two different teams that based out of Seoul and they happened to be playing each other that night.  We decided to cheer for the LG Twins instead of the Doosan Bears.

There were a lot of restaurants to eat dinner at but we decided to stick to the old faithful Burger King.

EVERYONE in the stadium buys these inflatable thunder sticks to use to cheer on their team during the game.  Not wanting to be left out of the fun we bought some for the girls.  (Russ and I decided to pass on the thunder sticks)

We quickly realized why baseball games are so much fun in Korea.  They put on a mini show the entire game.  They have mascots, cheerleaders, music and a man that wears a microphone and leads everyone in Korean songs and dances.

The cheerleaders are in the pink skirts. 

They had at least 4 of these mascots running around the stadium the entire game getting people excited and cheering.

Here the cheerleaders changed outfits for the second half of the game.

They would blow this up at different times during the game.

 The game was almost secondary to the entertainment.

This was during the SIXTH inning stretch.

Just like at American games they had vendors that walked around selling food and drinks.  Instead of carrying a whole tray of beer cups on their head they carry a keg on their back, like a backpack, and fill the cups. 

 The food isn't outrageously expensive like it is in America, but it is just as unhealthy (and delicious).

We decided that next time we go to a baseball game we will sit in cheaper seats in order to be closer to the entertainment.  Who needs good seats when the entertainment is so much fun?

Taylor wanted to photo bomb me in a picture.

We all had a great time.  We left at the end of the 7th inning because it was getting so late, but when we left our Twins were beating the Bears 9-2.
We will definitely take any visitors we have during baseball season to see a game.
 (Dad, since I know you read this, make sure you come during baseball season.  You would love this.)