Proud Momma of a Brat!

Mother Nature has seen fit to give us a break from the frozen tundra winter we've had by sending us some beautiful weather this week. We've been in the 60s twice this week, which I'm sure is breaking some record high somewhere.

Lots of warm, beautiful weather has allowed the girls and I to start enjoying the park after school again. This week, we've been playing at the parks on base with friends. It's been nice because the girls get to play with their friends, and I get to chat with mine. How I've missed that!

But something happened this week that I was both in awe of and filled with pride as a mother of a military brat: Holly stood still with her hand on her heart for retreat and sang "The Star Spangled Banner."

Imagine this:

You're in Wal-Mart after work when an announcement comes over the loud speaker that sends a hush over the crowd. For the next few minutes, all you can hear is the playing of our National Anthem. No one rushing to get the Price Drop item of the week, no beeps at the registers, no carts bumping into one another. The whole store is at a standstill until the song is over. Amazing right? It happens every day at a military base and is called Flag Retreat.

So, we were at the park later than usual, when the bugle came over to signal retreat. And my ants-in-her-pants daughter stood still, not only during our National Anthem, but the Korean national anthem as well. She sang along quietly with our anthem, giving me glances to see if I was paying attention.

Of course I was and I have never been more proud!

Oh Yeah - Sarah!

When looking back at the blog and how it's coming along, I noted we have lots of stuff on Holly but only mentions of Sarah and what she's up to. Not that she isn't doing anything, it's just a classic case of second child syndrome. Sarah, I apologize to you in advance should you ever read this years down the road.

So my little Sarah-lara is sure growing up quick. She's really coming into her own without having Holly around all the time to rely on. We have lots of fun and several weekly activities that fill our calendar.

Well, my good intentions to show you what we're up to were thwarted today by an untimely illness. Luckily, not ours, but of Sarah's gymnastics teacher. Sarah is in a tumbling class and just LOVES it. They jump on trampolines, balance, do cartwheels and even play on the rings a little bit. Hope to get some pictures soon of her class and what all they do.

In January, she started a part-day preschool; part-day only because that's all that is available at this point. She loves going to school and has made fast friends with everyone in her class. They aren't as structured as our one back in Texas, but she's really learning letter and number recognition. Every time she sees the letter "S" she'll tell you that it's her letter, and she knows the letters for all of us and most of her friends. She's also becoming quite the little artist.

Her biggest role is "Mommy Assistant." She's such a big helper on the numerous errands we seem to always be running. She picks out her own fruits at the 4/9 market, helps me get the mail, and lets me know when we're out of bananas, milk or yogurt.

My dear sweet baby is growing up in front of my eyes!

On the Sidelines?

Well, I've gone and done it.  Or overdone it if you will....   I have an injury. 

Rewind to me participating in the River Run on March 13th.  I have been steadily training and getting my miles in.  I won't be running the entire 15K, but my goal was to run a good bit of it. 

Last Friday, I got a great 4.5 miler in and Saturday and Sunday were to be my days of rest.  With two kids and an active life, we don't "rest" if you catch my drift.  Thus, Saturday was spent with the Girl Scouts lugging cookies back and forth and you can read about our Sunday in the Happy Lunar New Year post.  Everland is in the "hills" of Korea, which sure look like the North Carolina Mountains to me. 

I noticed my IT band was still a little sore come time for my run on Tuesday, so I took it easy with a 2.5 miler and even got 1 of the miles in on the indoor track since it was open.  Wednesday was to be a quick run as well and I had 3 miles planned.  About a mile into my run, I felt my calves tightening.  No big deal right.  I stopped, streched, got a drink of water and pressed on.  About 3 minutes later the tightening had given way to a dull pain, so I slowed down my pace.  Unfortunately, the pain persisted and I wound up with only 1.5 miles completed. 

When I got off the treadmill, my calves were really tight and there was a persistent dull pain in my inner calf.  I finished up my cardio round with a little cross training and then called it a day.

Guess I'm lucky I stopped when I did, because I hobbled out of bed yesterday morning and I still have some tenderness two days later.  I've been "resting" as much as a stay at home mom can, but no running will be done until the tenderness is gone.  Then I'll gradually build back up. 

I can't tell you how bummed I am right now.  I've been benched from training and I haven't gotten half the distance covered yet for the race.  But I am still determined to make it on March 13th if it means I have to walk the whole damned thing. 

Stay tuned.....     And if you bet on anything, bet that my stubbornness will win and see me reach my goal!

Best of Chris in Korea Blonde Moments, Vol. 2

If you missed our first installment of Chris is just a plain ditz, you need to go back and read the Transformer story:  Click Here if you missed it!  Go ahead, we'll wait....

So, time for me to tell on myself again....  This one is a throw back to November, so enjoy.

Right after we moved in and discovered that we need to really know Korean, we also discovered that all of our appliances are written in Korean.  For example, the oven doesn't have high, medium, low, it has the Korean equivalents to those words written on it.  Same for our AC, water heater, and "command center" that buzzes people in and out downstairs.  Well, said command center has a small intercom in our master bathroom. 

If you happen to live in Korea and have one of these things, no matter how bad you want to set the clock, please don't touch this button!

Now, time for the story.....  Luckily, we weren't the first non-Korean speakers living in this apartment.  Someone along the way had taken the time to draw out the different controls and write down what each button was.  I thought I was good and had memorized the crude drawings of the appliances with the English words on it. 

I went into the bathroom one evening and noticed the clock had not been set.  Since I had "all" the knowledge, I went about setting the clock.  Well, when you're done setting the clock, I got stuck on how to make it permanent.  The time just kept flashing at me.  Well it was a 50/50 shot as to which button to push.  Guess which one I picked.....  The Panic Button!

Yes, we have an I've fallen and I can't get up button in the bathroom. 

So the alarm is going off, Ronnie and the girls are like "What the....",  Ronnie started looking for all the other talkies to tell us what to do and none of them said "cancel."  Since the alarm kept going off, we couldn't call down to the guard shack at all and felt that at any moment, they were going to storm the 11th floor. Ronnie finally got down to the guard shack, pantomimed what was going on, and they called one of the guards who spoke decent English, who came up and in a matter of moments he was able to reset the alarm for us.

Of course, we all had a real good laugh about it. 

The reason I bring this up is because we had a power outage and the clock is flashing 12:00 again.  I think this time, Ronnie gets to set the clock.

한국 행복 설날 (Happy Lunar New Year!)

Hangug haengbog seolnal! My Korean is getting better huh? Actually, it's amazing what you can find on Google.

I'm still amazed at how many things are different than they are in the good ol' USA. In general, Koreans don't celebrate Valentine's Day (or Hallmark-stock-boost Day) like we do. But there wasn't lack of interesting things going on. This year, the Lunar New Year is the same day as Valentine's Day.

After careful consideration, we decided to gamble and head to Everland for the day. It was a gamble, because as we heard through the grapevine, Soellal traffic rivals what we see on Thanksgiving. Luckily, we have a really nice back way to go that avoids the major interstates, and is just a more peaceful drive. And doubly lucky, there was hardly any traffic that way.

Everland did a very nice job; this was their first attempt to bring in something cultural for Soellal. They had a celebration planned that included traditional Korean dancing, traditional games, and foods. The performers did a Samulnori (or farmers' dance). The dance was beautiful and was really distinctive because of the long, flowing tassels worn atop the dancers' hats which followed the music. Music is produced by 4 instruments: drum (buk), hourglass drum (chang-gu), and two types of gongs (ching and kkoenggwari). We were amazed at how they could play their instruments while whipping the tassels around.

During the show, the mistress of ceremonies asked if there were any "foreigners" in the audience. When scanning, she saw us sitting there and said, yes, there are some right there. Guess we stick out like sore thumbs. Ronnie was invited down to try his hand at beona, or spinning plates on a stick. He did really well. A little while later, there was another opportunity for audience participation and I was invited down to try out the spinning tassel hat. I don't think I've laughed as hard for so long in a while. There is a video, but you'll have to bribe Ronnie if you want to see it.

After visiting some of our regular haunts, we set out to find Tteokguk (pronounced duck gook). Tteokguk is a traditional meal that ages you another year, but also is to bring you good luck in the New Year, while warding off any evil from the previous year. It's made with tteok, or rice cake noodles that are sliced into coins, in a beef broth and is traditionally topped with egg, seaweed and slices of beef.

Lucky for us, we discovered one of the restaurants in the park was serving it. After some pantomiming with the restaurant staff, attempting a really bad pronounciation, and about 5 minutes of prep once they figured out what those crazy Americans wanted, we received our bowl of steaming hot soup. I can't begin to tell you how delicious the soup was. The tteok was chewy, but not gummy; the beef, egg, and seaweed were a nice compliment, but the star of this show for me was the broth itself. To describe it as velvety would not do it justice; so, I will just say that I WILL be adding this to my repertoire of cooking, as it was a family favorite. Holly and Sarah completely forgot about their pork cutlet and curry rice in favor of the "noodle soup" and it was gone before we knew it.

Normally, Everland would have fireworks to end the night, but not during "Winter Story" since they set off the fireworks on the same hill as the sledding. But they did have a light parade, complete with lit characters and booming music.

Saehae bok manhi badeuseyo

Many blessings for the New Year

Leaving on a Jet Train?

It's been a while since we had an Oliver Adventure that didn't involve Everland in some way shape or form. We love Everland and all, but momma needs to go somewhere else every once in a while. So we took a page out of the bird notebook and headed south to Busan (or Pusan, depending on what webpage you're on).

Busan is the 2nd largest city in South Korea. It's a beautiful port city at the southern tip of the country and is surrounded by mountains and the sea. Here's the best part, there is a high speed train that runs from Seoul to Busan. Getting on the high speed train from Songtan takes some ingenuity and a healthy dose of humor.

Unfortunately, South Korea doesn't really have an awesomely great English written travel guide that tells you step by step what to do, and if you aren't leaving from Seoul, you kind of have to guess your way on a couple of parts. We were able to guess correctly on some, incorrectly on others, but had a great time doing it. Lessons learned right?

But the part where we were in Busan was so relaxing.

We stayed at the Westin in Haeundae Beach (that would be Hyundai, like the car). Once we got settled at the hotel, we roamed around Haeundae and found a mermaid statue, a mermaid sand sculpture, visited the aquarium, and discovered a wonderful place to eat in a side alley. The day ended with a walk down the beach and a nightcap at O'Kim's, the Irish pub in the hotel.

Sunday brought us some beautiful weather, and we didn't need coats for most of the day! The girls went swimming in the hotel pool first thing Sunday morning, because what is the point of going to a beach if you can't go swimming? Then we packed up and headed for a local bakery for their breakfast set and hopped on the Metro to Beomeosa Temple.

Beomeosa Temple is so beautiful; it's nestled in the mountains north of Busan. This place will be gorgeous in the spring with all the cherry blossoms and other trees in bloom. After trekking up and down the steps to the different buildings, we dedicated a tile to our family. We then hopped back on the Metro and headed for the Jagalchi Fish Market on the bay.

Jagalchi reminded me of Pike Place Market in Seattle; it's a busy seafood market, with smaller stores all around. Walking up and down the aisles was a sight. Anything living in the ocean and edible in one form or another can be found here, including some items you may otherwise know only from the Discovery Channel. Holly had a lot of fun looking at the different types of fish, and even was chased down by a lobster! Unfortunately, we got there later in the day and there weren't any styrofoam coolers obviously out for sale and weren't prepared with our own, so we couldn't bring anything home with us.

After a trip up to the observation deck, we ventured out in the market surrounding Jagalchi and eventually wandered into the Gukje Market, the largest open air market in Busan. Ronnie and I joke about sampling all foods on a stick and how superior they are to non-stick foods. Well, this place was Street Food Galore! Still hungry from looking at all the beautiful seafood, we started sampling foods from the street vendors. We found candied strawberries, french fry covered hand dipped corndogs, mandu, and even a Pakistani gentleman selling gyros. They also had pajeon (seafood pancakes), twigim (tempura to us Americans), and waffles. Only when I just googled to figure out how to spell Gukje did I find that we were in Mokja Golmok or"Let's Eat Alley."

Once we finished eating our way through Gukje, we ventured back to catch our train home. Hopefully soon, we'll be able to visit again to put our lessons learned to good use.

Anyone Else Hear the Rocky Theme?

The girls and I are hopping back over the pond the first week of March for a quick visit. This was a spur of the moment trip that went from maybe we'll go home to booking the tickets in less than a day. We want to check in on Robbie, Ronnie's brother, and my baby sister is turning 30!!!!! We're hoping Ronnie will be able to join us, as he's been selected to go to a school around the same time.

There are a few undeniably Jacksonville events that I miss since I left home; the Florida-Georgia game, the Light Parade, and the Kingfish Tournament to name a few. But the big thing that has always been a Holy Grail of sorts for me is the River Run.

The River Run is a 15K ran over two of Jacksonville's famous bridges and winding around the downtown area. To say it's challenging is a understatement as mile 8 is crossing the Hart bridge (or the Green bridge). Luckily, the rest of the course is pretty flat.

Well, this year's River Run coincides with my trip home and I'm going to cross it off my bucket list. I have a good base for running and get about 4 small runs in per week (2 - 3 miles). I'll be upping my training the next 6 weeks to get ready for the "Hart-break Bridge" and luckily, I have elevation and hilly terrain on my side on this side of the world.

It's a big challenge, but I'm ready to meet this one head on and cross that finish line Rocky-style! I wonder if they give a prize for "furthest traveled" runner?