Easter Sunday, Changdeokgung Palace, Myeongdong

Sunday – Happy Easter everyone. This morning we woke up to find that Easter bunny can find us in Korea. There were little eggs hidden all around our room. The kids went on an excited hunt and Lily found a little fluffy chick and bunny under her pillow. How did easter bunny know that Lily couldn’t eat chocolate they wondered? 

We decided to celebrate Easter Sunday by heading off to church this morning with Sue, Michael, Tom and Lettie. We found a local English speaking expat interdominational one (google is a wonderful invention) within walking distance. http://www.seoulunionchurch.org/index.html

Actually they meet in a beautiful chapel inside the Yonsei University Campus (just a 10 min walk from Sinchon station). It was called Seoul Union Church, and had a lively congregation of a lot of expat Americans, and a few Australians that were mostly here on holiday. We met a couple from Canberra who were over here visiting their son & Korean daughter in law (who was about to give birth to their first grandchild). The service lasted 1.5 hours, so the kids were very wriggly, but it was a nice service with lots of modern singing, a band, and we were all invited to take a flower that we were given on entry up to the cross to decorate as part of the easter celebration.

We then walked back to our room for a little rest (and easter egg chocolate fix) before we headed out on the subway again to Changdeokchang Palace. This palace is famous for its Secret Garden and Seoul’s oldest stone bridge (built in 1412). The oldest and best preserved of Seoul’s palaces – it dates from 1405. It served as the main palace in the city for over 300 years.

. Unfortunately, the one and only way to visit the Secret Garden, is to do a guided tour which lasts for almost two hours. Not easy with hungry, wriggly or tired young children. Also, as we missed the English guided tour, we were put with the Korean only version, so did a lot of standing around and suceeded in breaking most of the palace security rules as follows –

Attached to the palace is the "Secret Garden", a beautifully landscaped garden to be used by the Royal Family only. There is a great collection of imported trees, pavillions, pagodas, stone bridges and ponds

a) lagging behind the rest of the group and making them wait, tutt, tutt
b) walking in front of the group is also not allowed
c) the lady at the gift shop gave Sam some biscuits to eat after she had a long chat with him about whether he had either a kangaroo or koala in his house for a pet??? So as he proceeded to eat the one little shortbread biscuit, a guard rushed over and said “no eating in the garden”
d) the kids got told off for not sticking to the pathways and walking on the grass
e) we were not allowed to leave the tour early (we tried to escape, but were soon shepherded back)

"Tell me Amelie," says Lily, "exactly what is the secret of the Secret Garden?"

So, although the gardens were beautiful, we were kind of glad to get out on our own again.

So after that, the Reddick family and ours decided to go to Myeongdong for dinner. We met the Turpies there. Myeongdong is a very trendy shopping and commercial area of Seoul. Known for its large department stores, and street markets selling all different kinds of clothing, jewellery, handbags, accessories – we wandered around somewhat aimlessly checking out the people and the stalls, then finding a restaurant for dinner.

Western style tonight – a cross between Italian and Mexican we think. Anyway, the food was quite good, then as has become one of our frequent habits we caught the subway home, and hosted the Reddicks in our room for a couple of hours after the children had gone to sleep.
I received a lovely phone call from Linda Choi tonight, who has just arrived in Seoul to pick up her daughter Eva. We chatted about catching up tomorrow at Eastern as we will be there too to visit our children's foster mothers.

Oh yes, one last thing - did I mention that in almost all subways (and all the connecting tunnels which go for miles) there are shops everywhere - very distracting for the mummies when trying to get somewhere on time! This is not a shopping centre - it's a subway tunnel.

Once again - thanks for all your emails - it was great to hear from you - Kim, Tamara, Jan, Emma, Diana, Mary, Janelle and Robyn recently. The answer is yes, we are a bit exhausted with our schedule, yes we are having a ball, and yes, I am doing lots of shopping!!!! Glad you are enjoying the blog, and I hope you are all taking notes and preparing for a trip of your own soon!

P.S. reader beware - tomorrow's entry could be soppy and somewhat emotional - its back to Eastern where we picked up our beautiful children all those years ago for a visit with their foster mothers...

Back to Seoul where we began...

Saturday - breaky at Paris Baguette again, then on the bus for a couple of hours (traffic is terrible), and back to the Cassaville Motel in Sinchon, Seoul. The hotel is great - right near the Sinchon subway exit, close to Hyundai Department store, lots of shops and fruit markets, etc. We have a two bedroom apartment, with a kitchen and small lounge - everything we need.
After dropping off our bags at 12.00 we headed out for lunch at a local McDonalds (yes, Brendan is happy to report that Big Mac's taste the same wherever in the world we have eaten them). Back to the room to do some washing, then charge up our plastic T-money travel cards at the subway, and we are off to the War Memorial. We visited this when we were here 7 years ago picking up Sam, and really enjoyed it, so thought it would be good for him to see. He was fascinated to climb all over the outdoor exhibits - a huge B52 bomber, a USA war patrol ship, many smaller Korean planes, tanks and armoured vehicles, helicopters, all sorts of military equipment.

Then inside we admired the amazing wooden turtle ships (a very unique Korean designed warship made of wood), and a huge array of all sorts of lifesize war dioramas depicting different battles. Sam was particularly interested in the Korean War ("but mum why did North Korea want to fight with South Korea when they are both Korea?") room. ("mum, does that mean that North Australia might come down and fight us?") My son, the deep thinker. Despite all the questions, he said he wasn't frightened by it all, he just found it interesting.

We looked at all the different countries that joined in to help the Koreans fight - all with the stats on how many Aussies fought (17,000), were killed (300) and were wounded (1700). They had mannikens dressed in all the uniforms of the different countries too, which was interesting. We spent a good couple of hours enjoying the exhibits and beautiful sculpures outside. It is an amazing place, and one certainly worth visiting if you are in Seoul. And even better - it's free!

We met Paul, Andrea & Jin and Deb, Joe, Luke & Trixie here, so then we all walked (about 1km) down past the US military base to the 'foreigners market town' of Itaewon. We were all craving a bit of western food, so booked ourselves a big table of 23 (Mrs Lee & Johnny have gone to stay with relatives for a few days), and we all enjoyed steak, seafood and veges at the Outback Steakhouse. Poor Lily was so relieved to be able to eat something other than rice which she has been living on for two weeks (because of her food allergies), that when she was tucking into a plate of ribs and chips she exclaimed "oh thankyou mumma for buying me this food".

A little bit of shopping in the subway on the way home (yippee - we found lego tshirts), and it was home to hide the easter eggs that we had brought from Australia - ready for tomorrow! Only a week to go before we head home - none of us want to leave this amazing, wonderful place that we have all adopted as our own.

Everland, Yongin

Friday – Off to Paris Baguette for a breakfast of coffee, chocolate filled croissants, and too many other sweet pastries. Then back on the bus to meet up with half of our group that had their homestays last night (a night with a Korean family at their homes). They all had a good time, despite sleeping on the floors on mats. Then it was back aboard the bus bound for Everland. The kids had all been hanging out for this day. Everland is Korea’s version of Disneyland. It is a huge, and amazing place, and right now the Tulip Festival is in full swing. Everywhere we looked we saw mass plantings of beautiful tulips, hyacinths and lots of other gorgeous flowers. Unfortunately it was cold and rainy today, but with us all dressed in (provided) plastic rain ponchos, nothing was going to stop us from having fun!

Our first ride was “It’s a small world” where we boarded small boats and were taken underground past various themed exhibits from all different countries of the world. The kids loved it.

Everland is part zoo, part entertainment (shows), part beautiful gardens. We saw amazing animals such as beavers, porcupines, all sorts of rare and unusual birds, and even a troupe of skunks (yes, I did say skunks) that performed jumping through hoops and up and down little stairs.

We boarded a safari bus for a short ride around a jungle area where we saw lions, tigers, ligers and huge brown grizzly bears stand up on their hind legs and walk right up to the bus.

The “Daredevil of the Day” award goes to Deb, who went on every scary huge rollercoaster ride, and stomach lurching spinning tumble, and laughed and smiled through it all shouting “I love it!!”. She and Michael Stemp had a ball going on all the big rides.

We were given coupons for both lunch and dinner, so could choose which of the several restaurants we ate at. After dark, the place really comes alive, and we watched the Moonlight Parade, which was dazzling in intensity with all the floats and dancers lit up with fairy lights.

While we were eating dinner in the restaurant, Lily looked out the window and suddenly asked “Mummy, is that the Faraway Tree?” (yes, we are reading Enid Blighton at the moment), but my goodness, here was a beautifully lit up huge fairy tree, that anyone could well imagine it to be the very tree. You could touch various parts of the trunk and it would make funny noises or music. Lily was fascinated.

After the grand parade, and a couple more chairlift rides across the whole park, we watched the brilliant laser lights and fireworks display which Sam thought was the best part of the whole day.

The kids had a wonderful time, and I’m sure will take home many happy memories of playing here with there friends. Back to the hotel around 10pm – oooh, are we tired little bunnies tonight.

Suwon Folk Village

Thursday - A couple of hours on the road, and we arrived at the outer Seoul suburb of Suwon to spend the day at the famous Folk Village. It is hard to describe the beauty of this place. A natural forest environment of 243 acres, more than 260 houses from different regions of Korea, all set beside a beautiful river. The whole area is bursting with blossom from towering white magnolia trees, pink azaleas, bright yellow shrubs, and there are pansies, violets and other spring flowers everywhere. There are a range of different traditional buildings, from commoners houses to a 99 section Nobleman's house, plowed fields, some planted with traditional crops such as cotton, wheat, barley, and various other staples. There are old women plucking, sorting, and spinning the cotton, then weaving it into cloth.

There are women dressed in the traditional hanbok dress boiling up large bots of silkworm cocoons, then delicately plucking the cobweb fine strands from each cocoon, and spinning them into silk to make into fabric. (Sam was amazed at this one). There are woman making various types of bean paste, and other traditional foods for storage to sustain them over the cold winters. There are various museums, exhibits, sculptures, children's amusement rides, and performances.

We all sat down with thousands (oh yes, it is school field trip week in Korea - and they all do it at once!) of brightly dressed, noisy little children ranging in age from 2 to 16, to watch the colorful farmers dance. This is best described as a series of men dressed in their colorful handboks, with black hats, with a ribbon fixed on the centre of each hat that they twirl around in patterns, jumping over them in formation. All this is accompanied by much gong clanging, and drum banging. After the performance we spoke to the grandmaster of the troup who was aged 70. He had been dancing and performing this dance for people since he was 10 years old, and now his son and grandson were also in the troupe, entertaining the crowds.

We also watched the clever highwire act. A single (quite elderly) man, balanced on the tightrope in special socks, dancing and sitting crosslegged on the rope at various intervels was very entertaining. We also watched a traditional wedding with all its pomp and ceremony, the bride and bridegroom dressed in their finery (and traditionally they do not meet until the actual ceremony itself. They are promised to each other by their parents at the age of around 5 or 6, then actually don't speak to each other until the wedding night. Goodness!

We all enjoyed our time at the village, and it goes without saying that once again, quite a lot of shopping occurred (bought you a birthday present here Jan).

Off to dinner at a local restaurant, then a walk around the streets to find somewhere for breakfast. This happens sometimes if the hotel we are staying in doesn't provide breakfast. Sunny (our korean guide) likes us to choose a place, then she arranges a running tab for us, so we can choose what we like - a good idea). So tomorrow its Paris Baguette (not very Korean is it??). Decent coffee and bakery items - yum!
Oh one more thing. Have I told you about the high degree of decorating anything that isn't nailed down in Korea? We are constantly amazed everyday by the range of very over the top clothes, furnishings, everything really. For example - check out our bus furnishings - even the water filter at the front has a gold cover and tassles! Note exotic tassled window coverings....  mmmmm.... lovely......

Jeonju Hanok Village

Wednesday - We have spent today walking around the old part of Jeonju again, after a morning hanbok class. (Hanbok's are Korean national dress). We all tried them on, took some photos and were shown how to wear them properly, and bow (not as easy as it sounds!). Liz Reddick was dressed up in the wedding hanbok, so looked especially lovely. After that we headed off to a local restaurant in the village for lunch - traditional style. I forgot to mention yesterday's delicacy for lunch was strips of raw marinated beef mixed with rice, gingko nuts and vegetables. Mary (my chef friend) - you would have been so proud of me - I ate it all - and actually it was quite nice.

This afternoon most of our group is being led around the old city by individual guides (university students that volunteer for INKAS), but our family decided to come back to the room for a short nap (yes, that is Brendan you can hear snoring in the background as I write this) and rest, before returning there later to meet the others for dinner at 6pm. On the way we stopped for a few photos around the city.

Amelie, Lily and Jin - three delightful 3 year old buddies.

I must say the shopping has been good today (do I say that a lot?). Silversmiths making beautiful Shilla Kingdom pattern jewellry, lovely linen and silk panelled placemats and runners, Kyobo bookstore (sorry about the extra weight in the luggage Brendan), ceramic traditional little Korean houses, fans, and a myriad of other things. I wonder if there will come a day when we don't shop?????

Jeonju Paper museum and Hanok Village tour

Tuesday - a couple of hours on the bus, and we stopped at the large cultural city of Jeonju. Our first stop was the Jeonju Hanji Paper Mill and Museum. Firstly we all got to make some paper from Mulberry tree bark, which had been treated (boiled, beaten, and bleached) and was in almost liquid form. We dipped a wooden frame lined with a bamboo mat into the solution, shook it around for 10 seconds, then lifted it out, drained off the liquid, and then removed the thin bamboo mat. It was covered in a thin layer of sludgy liquid, which we then held over a special machine that sucked the moisture out of it, then it was laid on a hot metal plate for a couple of minutes, and wala - a sheet of paper. We then took it over and stamped it. The kids also got to use an old ink press, and made themselves a stamped picture - they had a lovely time. We then spent some time going through the museum, watching a short film on the different ways humans have recorded their stories since the beginning of time, carved on animal bones, on parchment, etc until the invention of paper which was a great step forward.

Next it was off to the Jeonju Hanok Village. A bit like Korea's huger version of Sovereign Hill, but with a lot of actual historic houses. Actually about 700 of them.We experienced a variety of different crafts, artwork, a palace, beautiful trees and gardens, museums, and of course lots and lots of little shops (some of them specialising in the local craft - papermaking).

We were all exhausted by the end of the day, and after eating dinner in a restaurant in the village, it was a bit of a walk dragging our suitcases up a narrow shopping street to our hotel. We are a little concerned about why there is a half empty can of bug spray in the rooms, but we are all tired, so will hopefully all sleep well. In Korea they do not have more than 3 beds in a room (mostly only 2), so a lot of the time the kids have been sleeping on futons (a doona on the bottom, and a doona on the top) on the floor. In all of the hotels the floor heating is always on, and very hot, so the first thing we always do when we arrive at a new hotel is try and figure out how to turn it off before we all cook.
Most nights after the children go to sleep we congregate in someone's room for a chat and a snack. We are having a great time with Bill and Liz (and especially Liz's stash's of Aussie chocolate that she brought with her - thank you Liz!!).

Damyang Bamboo Park, Big Bill’s food adventure

Monday – This morning we started the day visiting the Bamboo Museum – and listened to an interesting talk about bamboo and the various uses for it. We were astonished to find out about how fast it grows – 2-3 feet per week. The museum was interesting and it was amazing to see all the practical uses of bamboo – from eating the shoots, bathing in bamboo liquid, and an assortment of tools, cups, woven baskets, all manner of things.

Next we took a walk down a famous road lined with the towering Meta Sequoia trees. Today was quite cool, so we needed our jackets on. Lunch was at a famous bamboo restaurant (rice with seeds and nuts cooked in a large bamboo tube), BBQ meat and all the usual side dishes.

Bill gets the award today for being most adventurous with food. The kids love calling Bill, “Big Bill” – and today we found out he is big in the adventure department. We all enjoyed  watching him taste some fish that Mrs Lee ‘thoughtfully’ picked up in her chopsticks and said “here, Bill, try this” while putting it in his mouth. Those of us watching all thought, that was nice of her, knowing how Bill likes his fishing. Well, that was until we all waited to see what he thought of it, and he mentioned after some consideration that it actually tasted a little bit like rotten meat. Mrs Lee, wagged her finger with a funny look and said “Oh yes, it’s awful, I wouldn’t eat it” or something like that, and then explained that it was stingray that is left out in the sun for 10 days to rot. Apparently it’s a delicacy in these parts!!!  We all fell about laughing at poor Bill, and he joked the rest of the day that he would find a way to get his revenge on her.

Next stop, the famous Damyang Bamboo Park forest. We spent a couple of hours walking around through the forest, stopping to let the kids have a play on one of the rare playgrounds we have seen. We pass quite a lot of women monks around this area, who all bow politely to us.

Off again to a quaint traditional Korean building in a small village to learn the art of Korean sweet treat making. We once again donned aprons for a cooking class. This time we mixed sweet rice syrup, soybean oil, sugar and a mix of puffed rice, seeds and nuts in a frypan. It was then colored either pink (ground dried cactus flowers), green (mulberry leaves) or yellow (gardenia seeds). It was mixed up, then pressed into a flat tray, rolled, and turned out and cut up. Yum! The kids loved it and we made plenty to take away with us. The kids are all becoming little master chefs having a great time.



Our last stop of the day was to the ‘slow village’ of Changpyeong Myeon. A small village with very old traditional houses and buildings that we strolled around. The best bit, was as we walked around taking photos, an old man came up and asked us what we were doing, and when we mentioned we were tourists having a look around, he immediately summoned us all into his back yard, to see his huge earthenware pots sitting outside. He uncovered one and proudly told us that the soy sauce inside was 120 years old (handed down from his great grandfather). He invited us all for a taste (which most of us did, and found it very fruity and delicious). He only takes out a small amount each year to add to the special New Year’s Day soup. He also showed us his red bean paste he was fermenting in another pot. He had a crazy collection of puppies, and a goat or two, so was a hit with the kids too. A great, unexpected moment in our day.

Something else made our day today. We were all excited when Brendan got a text message on his phone from Linda telling us that she had just received news to travel to pick up her little girl Eva. She will be here in Seoul on Sunday, so we can't wait to catch up with her and Stephen and Eliel. How special that it has happened while we are here!

Back to the hotel, and just time for another visit to the day spa. Most of the mums once again ventured into the huge spa area (segregated of course), and enjoyed the massaging waterfalls, several different hot pools, a cold larger pool, and outdoor pools. We all thought it was a lovely way to end the day, sitting together in the hot pools, chatting about all the fun and interesting things that had happened during the day. By now, we are old hands at it, and know the procedure of foot locker, clothes locker, clothes off, shower, spend an hour or so in all the lovely hot pools, back into the shower, dry, dress, into the pampering rooms equipped with hair dryers, lotions and potions, perfumes, etc before it was back to the real world, and off to dinner with the kids. Snitzel and side dishes tonight – a bit of a Japanese influence. Off to pack our bags as we move to a different location tomorrow for a couple of nights. Goodbye Damyang, we have really enjoyed our stay here...