Sunday, July 21, 2013

Weekend Fun

I'll try to do a post about last week (and this week) sometime soon, although not too much happened that's super interesting. I did see some old friends, so I'll attempt to write it, but I want to write about this weekend first because I have pictures for it!

On Friday, I didn't leave work until almost 11 because we were going over the summer schedule which starts next week. At the end of that, my co-worker brought out some left over cake from her boyfriend's birthday the night before and we sat and ate cake (with chopsticks). Later that night, Dallas and I watched "Rise of the Guardians" because I had never seen it. It was pretty cute. It took a little while to fall asleep, but eventually I did. I set my alarm for 9:15, because we were going to the beach in the morning and I wanted to get a decent head start.

We didn't end up leaving until about 10:30 though. We caught a bus and Dallas had made egg sandwiches for us for breakfast. We ate those, then some celery sticks with peanut butter. It was weird when he pulled out a butter knife from his bag, but then he took out the jar of peanut butter and it made sense. The ride took about an hour and then he hopped in a cab. I took him to Namildae - the beach Krista and I visited a couple of weeks ago. Dallas hadn't been there yet and while it's not the prettiest beach, it's close and easy to get to. It's a little pretty too.

Just like when I was with Krista, we rented an umbrella and tubes. I went to the beach in clothes this time, because I wanted to try and take some decent pictures with ummm cleavage support and not crazy hair. It was really hot when we got there though, so Dallas whined about it and we decided to go swimming first. This led to me sitting under a towel and changing on the beach because the bathroom was too far away. It was slightly awkward, but I was able to do it without anything popping out. We went in the water for a long time - around an hour or so. There were a lot more people this time too and they sectioned off the water, so we had less of an area to swim in. This time they had banana boat rides, but it was $15 a person for like a 15 minute ride, so we decided not to do it.
Dallas playing in our tubes
The people next to us were geniuses because they brought an air mattress. It took awhile to fill because he had a hand pump, but they brought that thing in the water and took naps on it.
We got out, dried off a little bit, then looked for lunch. I told him that there weren't many options. They did have fried chicken, but the thought of that made me slightly ill so we opted not to eat it. We settled on ramen and split a bowl of that plus some nuts. We also split a bottle of soju and it hit Dallas harder than me so he was a little tipsy. We ate an ice cream cone after and I told him to surprise me. He ended up picking out a random one, which turned out to be chestnut (including little chunks of chestnut). I'm not even sure how to describe the taste.
Lunch - soju shots, ramen and mixed nuts! That's how you do it.
Babambar = chestnut ice cream. Those smiley faces are liars.
We resunscreen and went back in the water. As soon as we got in, Krista and her friend Amy saw us and motioned us over to float with them. I forgot that they were going too. We also saw another guy from Jinju and his girlfriend. Small world. The 4 of us chatted and played for awhile and Dallas pulled all of us out to the buoys. We stayed for maybe 30-40 minutes, then decided to get out and go for a walk to the arch. It looked like people were walking there earlier and it was under water when Krista and I went last time, so I wanted to see it. Krista and Amy decided to stay in the water, so just Dallas and I went. We couldn't get all the way out there, but we got closer than last time. I guess the tide had started coming in because Krista said there were people in the hole earlier in the afternoon, so if we had gone just before or after lunch, we might have made it. Oh well, it gives us a reason to go back!
The sky was a bit cleared this day, so some pictures are better than when I went with Krista.
Some guy called this the elephant trunk.
View back to the beach from the rocks near the arch.
A Korean guy talked to us for like 10 minutes about the arch. Neither of us had any idea what he was saying. Then he asked if I would take his picture. So I did. Then he made Dallas and me go up too.
After the walk, we stopped at the little place we had lunch and ordered a patbingsu to split. This one had random fruit on it as usual and lots of red beans, but it was still pretty good. I'm getting very used to weird Korean desserts. While we were eating, the guy who saw us on the rocks, came over and sat with his friends, then pointed at us and talked about us. He showed them our picture too, so I guess he took one of us on his camera. Eh, Korea. After our snack, we got our stuff and called a cab. While we were waiting for it, Krista and Amy showed up again, so we split the cab back to the bus station. The bus was right there and we all hopped on and basically fell asleep - well everyone else did - I texted people and looked at pinterest. When we got back, I had to speed shower and change because I was hosting game night at church. I needed to clean myself up, go get snacks and be back to the church in less than 2 hours. I made it!
Shaved ice, sweetened condensed milk, red beans, fruit
Game night turned out to be pretty fun (at least for me). We played a game of 30 seconds while people were still showing up. Every time a new person came, we added them to a team. So it turned out to be a team of 4 and a team of 5. Then, we played Beyond Balderdash, which is like the original except you add movies, people, dates etc. instead of just word definitions. It was really fun. I came in second. A new guy named Joe totally kicked butt - although I guessed the most "correct" answers. We then played partner 30 seconds. Joe and I were on a team and did really well - we got beat by 3 spaces by Ilani and Renier. They are both South African and dating, so I they should have won by more. It was still really fun though. I got home around 11ish and read for a bit, then passed out.
Balderdashing
10 points if you can guess what this is advertising. Did you guess children's bookstore? If so, congrats!
On Sunday, I met Dallas for brunch as usual. Then we had coffee and went to the DVD rental place because tomorrow is his 6th graders last day with him and some classes get a party. Then I went to church and ran the power point slides because the girl who usually does it is studying in the Philippines for the next month. I think it went ok and nobody seemed to complain. Lori (one of the church members) made cute snacks today - they were fun-sized Snickers with 4 M&Ms stuck to the sides to look like wheels, and the top half of a teddy graham on top to look like he was driving the car. I forgot to take a picture before I ate mine, and then they were all gone. After that, a group of us went to a coffee shop and sat and talked for 2 hours. I got to hold baby Calvin and get my baby fix in for awhile.

After that, I went home and did dishes, then went to Dallas's house where he cooked some duck breast and we ate that, cucumbers and lettuce for dinner. Then we played rummy (I won!) and went on our Sunday night walk. We ended it a little early because tomorrow (and hopefully for the next 3-4 weeks while I'm on summer schedule) we're going to the gym in the mornings to do strength training exercises. I'm nervous about it, but we'll see how it goes. I'm hopefully about to play Catan with my brother too! So again, another good weekend in the ROK.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Samchenpo walk with Todd and Chris

I didn't really have plans for Saturday, so I decided to walk around Jinju and clean my house. Luckily, I was playing Words with Friends and talking to my friend Todd on Facebook and he invited me to go walking with him in Samchenpo. I jumped on the chance because it would be a new place and I hadn't seen Todd in awhile.

We tried to get on the same bus, but mine was full, so he hopped on another one. I got to the terminal first and found Chris, who lives in the area and was going to be our guide for the day. We went to Paris Baguette so he could get some breakfast, then we met Todd back at the terminal. He also wanted some breakfast so I walked back to PB with him. The boys ate their snacks, I sun-screened my face, and then we headed out for our walk. Chris and Todd do a lot of hiking, but (lucky for me and not so lucky for him) Todd has tendonitis in his groin and can't do anything too strenuous, so I had a shot of keeping up with them. We headed up some random streets and just trusted Chris that he knew where he was going.
Squash growing on a roof because where else would you grow squash?
After a little while, we arrived at a super cute park area. There were a bunch of girls from Chris's middle school who were doing some sort of project and they all said hello to him. Then we saw some little kids playing in a pond of sorts and felt the water. It was nice and cool and we all wished that we'd had bathing suits. It was super hot and sunny so we were already sweating after only a little while and before we really started the walk. Then we walked through the park and up around a lake area. It was really pretty, but still really hot.
The pond at the park.
Make-shift water slide/rapids that these kids went down.
Another fountain on the other side of the park with a bridge and the parking lot in the background.
A view of the park, including a rose garden path, from above on our walk.
Some beautiful flowers with mountains in the back.
A really nice lake that we walked around - well on one side of it.
Rice fields - it was this green on the walk - no editing was done here!
We got to another little pool area formed in the middle of this river/stream that we walked next to most of the way. Apparently it's pretty full after a good rain, but it hasn't rained in a over a week here (even though the weather says differently) so it wasn't that impressive. There were lots of families and kids playing in the water though and some had some pretty nice picnic set-ups, including a group of ladies sitting under a bridge. After we stopped at the little pool and stuck our arms in, we had a little snack of kimbap that Chris had brought with him. That was one other problem we had - Todd and I both had water bottles, but there was nowhere to fill them up again, so we were both really thirsty. After our snack, we walked a little further to the foot of a hiking trail up the mountain. None of us were up to that hike, so we turned around and took the other path down the hill.
The ladies under the bridge just chillin'.
An empty water run-off drain. It hadn't rained in a week or so, but Chris says this looks really pretty after it rains.
On our way down, a group of about 10 older men shouted at us and asked us to come over and have some soju with them. We walked over and they made some room for us to sit in the little pavilion, then they gave me water at first and then a dixie cup with soju in it. They also offered us sashimi and octopus (which was still moving), but I declined (Chris ate some fish and Todd ate some octopus). They tried to talk to us and with our limited Korean and their limited English we managed to get some info. The guy sitting next to Todd was 70 years old. And one other guy helped to build the school Chris works in. Then one guy told me I had to go on a diet. The old guy said he weighed 80 kilos and that I should weigh 60 so I needed to lose my stomach. So that was fun. Then they told us to go and we said thank you and left. It was very strange and yet totally Korean.
Todd eating octopus. The bowl in front of him has soju in it.
Once we got back to the park, Chris called a taxi and we went back to his apartment to cool off for a little while. He showered and Todd and I sat in front of the ac and drank water and beer to relax. Then we went and ate sam gae tang (chicken soup) for lunch. This place was pretty good and it had some good seeds on top. After lunch and beer, I was sleepy, so Todd and I decided to catch a bus back to Jinju. Chris walked us to the terminal and we got a bus immediately, which was nice. It's only about a 30 minute ride, and Todd actually gets off slightly before me, so we talked for a bit, and then he left. Both of us had sunburn on various parts (mine is really just arms, his was legs and neck) and wanted to take showers and naps. When I got home, I hopped in a cold shower for a few minutes to get all the sweat off and cool down. Then I fell asleep for two hours.

A chicken filled with rice, green onions and seed. It's really good.
I forgot to sunscreen my arms, so I got me some sunburn.
It was a really nice Saturday and I need to do little day trips like that more often. I need to also remember not to be shy and take pictures of people, because the only thing I regret is not getting some pictures of the old Korean guys.

Sunday was back to normal. I cleaned some in the morning and found a centipede in my shower under a bottle of shampoo. I screamed and luckily had a scrub brush and squashed it. Then I went to church and ate pizza with everyone after because we had a town hall meeting and went over some church ideas. Then I went grocery shopping with Ilani and came home and cooked some more lemon chicken, using up all my lemons finally. Then I cleaned up and watched 2 episodes of Franklin & Bash. Later, I walked/ran by the river and met Dallas while he did pull-ups. Then we talked for a bit and he went home and I read. So over all it was a good weekend.
Lemon chicken, brown rice, tomatoes, red bell peppers and cucumber.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Unexpected weekend in Seoul

In my last post, I mentioned how Jayden had been in a bus accident. On Friday evening, he told us that the doctors were making him stay in the hospital for a week, so he had to reschedule his plane ticket back to Australia. We decided to go and visit him and give him some moral support. Plus, this was one more chance to see him before I go back to the US. We woke up pretty early on Saturday morning and made the trip up at about 8 am. Dallas got us coffees one the way there and for some reason drank his out of the carrying case.
He also wore my UGA hat all weekend because he forgot hair care products :) Go Dawgs!
The ride up was pretty uneventful - or at least I don't remember anything about it. Then we rode the subway for about 20-30 minutes and met Jayden outside of his hospital. He walked out and met us in his hospital pjs. We went back to his room, which is a smallish room with 4 beds (and 4 patients) in it. Under each of the beds was a roll-out bed for family. I'll tell you a little more about his roommates later. We dropped off our stuff and chatted for a little bit.

Around noon (or possibly a little before) his mom came and wanted to take us out to lunch. This was the first time for either of us to meet his mom and she's adorable. She was wearing shorts and talked about how Jayden's dad didn't like it when she did because she was too uncovered. But we said she looked good and she was happy. She took us to get shabu shabu which was really good. I must also mention that J was still wearing his hospital pjs at this point. People just come and go in hospital gear all the time in Korea. It's very strange. At the restaurant, they had these long sticks with what looked like uncooked meatloaf on the table. Once we ate most of the veggies, the waitress came over and used a little knife and made the sticks into meatballs. It was pretty crafty. Then we went to a bookstore to get Jayden some reading materials and Dallas bought the first three books in the Heroes of Olympus series (we read the Percy Jackson series earlier this year and this is sort of a continuation of that). Then his mom wanted to get us coffee or snacks, but we were still really full. So she just got some waters and drinks, then went home.
Shabu shabu with salad and kimchi. Jayden is cooking and you can check out his jammies.
We all felt a little awkward in the hospital room, because other people had family in there and it was slightly crowded, so we decided to leave again - oh and J was still wearing hospital pjs. We went to a cafe and ate patbingsu with fruit and frozen yogurt, then Jayden had to go back and check in at the hospital, but was only gone for a few minutes. When he came back outside, the three of us went on a walk near the Han river, which is the main river that flows through Seoul. The parks/bike paths/walking trails are one thing I will miss a lot when I go home. We have some parks, but you have to drive to get there, while there has always been something within a 15 minute walk from anywhere here.
The path we walked down. It would have been really pretty at sunset.
Us and some flowers
After our walk, we went back to the hospital room. One guy's family was there and he had some super cute daughters who looked at me and Dallas like we were aliens (the youngest ones were probably about 2 or 3). The middle daughter didn't want to leave and asked if she could stay with her dad, but they wouldn't let her. It was very sweet. Jayden got a shot in the butt around then I think and so did two other guys. That's one Korean experience I haven't had yet, but is very common as a remedy for pretty much anything. Cold? Butt shot. Neck pain? Butt shot.

Then Jayden's parents came to the hospital to take us out to dinner. His dad is super cute and shook both of our hands. Neither of his parents speak English and our Korean is limited, so Jayden had to translate a lot. We weren't hungry, plus we felt bad for them paying for everything for us, so Jayden told them to go have dinner and that we would see them tomorrow. We rested for awhile - Dallas fell asleep and Jayden and I chatted, then watched some of a variety show which is pretty funny. One of the other guys came back and he laughed a lot.

The last man (who was across from J) had a meanish wife. Apparently she had been complaining all week about wanting to get this or that or change beds. She was annoying everyone in the room.When all the other patients were in the room, we decided we should leave and go get something light for dinner. Plus, they lock the front door of the hospital at around 10 pm, and we wanted to make sure we were back by then. We ate some cold noodles that had a sauce made from beans. It was ok, but it had chunks of ice in it, so it would have been better without those. Dallas didn't like it much because it was basically tasteless, so he ate some of Jayden's noodles that had clams in it.

When we got back to the hospital, I decided to change into pajamas and the mean lady was actually really nice to me. She offered me shampoo and her shower shoes, but all I was doing was changing. Then she noticed that I'd be sleeping there, so she got me a pillow and a blanket. Then the nurse came in and gave everyone the door code so we could leave if we wanted to. Even though I had already put on pjs (just shorts and a t-shirt), we decided to leave and go to a coffee shop. We walked around for a little while, then found a really cute one that was across the street. It had really cool interior with wood and brick and the coffee was good too. We taught J how to play rummy and he taught me a game called 3 strikes, which is a number game. We stayed there until just after midnight.

When we got back to the room, it was really cold and everyone else was asleep. The boys fell asleep pretty quickly, but I basically only slept for about an hour. There were 7 people in the room (including me) and every one of them snored at some point. The adjuma got up and turned off the ac, so then the room got hot. One guy had a nightmare and woke himself up and another guy's phone rang at 4 am. I figured out that I need to get in rhythm with the room when I sleep and that just wasn't going to happen. Then at 5:30 a nurse came in to see if everyone was there and at 6 another nurse came in and hooked all the patients up to IVs. Shortly after that, they dropped off breakfast. Then some people tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't, so I got up and took a shower and got dressed. When I got back to the room, the super loud snorer gave me some iced coffee. Then the boys woke up a little bit and we watched the news. The other patients all apparently felt bad that Dallas and I didn't get breakfast, so each of them gave us something. The snorer gave me more coffee, the nightmare guy (who had the kids) gave us ramen and the adjuma gave us grapes and melon. They were all very sweet. Then Jayden's mom and dad showed up around 9 or 9:30 and said they'd be back in a bit to take us to lunch. They came back after about 30 minutes and Dallas and Jayden had barely gotten dressed. The other people in the room told Dallas to wear the snorer's sandals instead of his sneakers for some reason, and he did. It was totally bizarre and yet totally Korea.

We told his parents that we weren't hungry yet, so they said they'd drive us around and show us some of Seoul. It was foggy so Jayden's dad was mad that we couldn't see good views. His mom then suggested we go to this cool park thing where the two branches of the Han meet. On the way, his parents were talking and asking us some questions and just generally being parents. They were both grateful that we came to visit J and at one point said that we were like their son and daughter. When we got to the park, we had to walk down this trail, but the dad went back to move the car to a different parking lot so that we wouldn't have to walk back that far.

While we were waiting for him to park, we all got ice creams or popsicles.Then we walked across this cool ship bridge with lots of flags.
This is where we started to go to the main part of the park.
This is why it was called the ship bridge - it was resting on boats.
Abandoned (or carefully placed) boat in the middle of lily pads.
The park was full of lotus flowers, which I had never seen in real life before. It also had small ponds set up with random statues around. The whole park was adorable and we walked around for a little while. Dallas and I probably could have stayed for another hour taking pictures, but we could tell that his parents didn't want to wait quite that long, although they didn't rush us.
D on a tiny bridge over a lily pond.
Lots of the statues were of naked people doing weird things. Many were naked women with babies. I don't really know what the theme was supposed to be.

There were also 3 goats randomly walking around and eating grass or lying in the road.
Me, D, Jayden's mom and J standing in front of the lotus pond.
Pink and white lotus flowers.
Me and the flowers
Another picture of us
Dallas's hand for comparison. He has big hands too.
Jayden's parents wanted us to see all of the park, so they took us back over the bridge and had us walk around some more. The main reason for the part is the spot where the two branches of the river meet. It's called Du Mul Mori (or something close to that) which means 2 waters head/meet up. 
Me on the other side of the park with more flowers. They hadn't bloomed yet though, just had huge leaves!
Pretending he's falling into the leaves.
It was really bright - this was for head comparison with the leaves - see, they're pretty big!
Just beyond this tree is the spot where the rivers meet. I like the artsy shot D took here.
After the park, his parents took us to this out of the way tofu restaurant. They go there often apparently. This place makes their own tofu and it was really good. We split plain tofu (which is the white squares) with kimchi and other sides, plus a bowl of sudubu which is tofu soup. It was really good here. His dad kept trying to make us eat more, but we were both full. We also found out we had splinters from the porch where we leaned over to take pictures of our heads with the leaves.
Lunch!

After lunch, we drove back towards the hospital, but decided to go to Olympic park instead to walk around. Jayden's dad had a meeting, so he stopped the car near a subway stopped and hopped out. Dallas and I got out to hug him good bye. Then Jayden took over and drove us to the park. We tried to go to the art museum attached to the park, but it was closed because they are changing exhibits. We went to a coffee shop and got take out coffees. We tried to pay, but Jayden's mom said no and slapped Dallas's hand out of the way. Then we walked around the park for awhile, but it started to rain, so we went back to the car.
Jayden and his mom. This is very common for Korean boys and their moms. One thing I like about Korea.

We drove back to the hospital and packed our stuff. It was about 3 pm so we decided we should get going so that we wouldn't be home too late. We all hugged good bye and Jayden walked us to the subway. He texted later that his mom was more upset than he was! When we got to the bus station, we couldn't get a bus until about 5 or 5:30 (I forget exactly when), so we walked across the street to another coffee shop and played rummy again and chatted. We talked for about the first hour on the ride home, then both of us fell asleep for an hour until we woke up at the rest stop. Dallas bought some snacks and then he fell asleep again. We got home around 9ish and went to emart to get some groceries. Then we went back to my apartment and I made breakfast burritos for dinner. We watched some TV, he went home and we both went to sleep.

It was a really good weekend, full of random and fun events. I know I'm forgetting stuff and that this is a long post. Maybe I'll add more details if/when I remember them. I also realized even with the good public transportation here, there are places that you need a car to see. I had a great time meeting Jayden's parents, but wish there hadn't been such a language barrier. I'm also glad I got to see J one more time, although I know I'll see him again eventually. This once again goes to show that sometimes it's the unplanned things that are the best.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Friday jimjilbang

Last Friday Dallas and I decided to stay at a local jimjilbang to try it out. Earlier in the day, Jayden messaged us and told us that he'd been in a bus accident and was ok, but was in the hospital for a week or so having his neck checked on (more about that later). We decided to go visit him on Saturday, so we packed for Seoul as well.

We left after work and walked the 10 minutes to the sauna. We have to go in separate sauna areas, and decided to meet up again in 45 minutes. I went in and it was quite busy for after 10 on a Friday night. I scrubbed myself down, then sat in a hot tub for a few minutes. Then I chickened out of going in the outside hot tub because there were people in it. I waited until they came out before I went, but there were still two ladies in the tub. I sat with them for awhile and they just stared at me. Then I went inside and went in the cold pool and actually swam a little bit. It is definitely not as fun by yourself. After I got out of the pool, I rescrubbed, dried off some, combed my hair and got dressed in the jimjilbang uniform.

Then I went downstairs to meet Dallas. I thought we were going to go in the different rooms and relax/sweat, but he didn't want to get all sweaty before we went to bed. Instead, we went into the ac room and he plucked my eyebrows. Then we went into the crystal room and that was still too hot for him, so we went back in the main room where people were watching a Korean pop show similar to Idol. We sat in massage chairs for 10 minutes (at least I think that's how long it lasted) and they were somewhat painful because they really beat you. Then we decided it was time to sleep. Dallas ran downstairs and found a super dark quiet room and that's where we went. There are rooms upstairs for men or women, and in those rooms are piles of blankets and some weird cubes for pillows. I just grabbed 3 blankets - one for a pad, one for a blanket and one for my pillow. Then we went to sleep. It wasn't that bad, but I still didn't sleep well because I never do when I have to get up early the next day - I'm paranoid that I'll miss the alarm.

We got up at 7 on Saturday and went back to the saunas to shower and get dressed. Then we met up outside and got a cab to the bus terminal to go to Seoul. It was a new Korean experience for me and I think we might try it again when we don't have to get up early or if we need a cheap place to stay one night somewhere else. Although I've heard some of the bigger cities are quite crowded and I wouldn't like that.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Jayden's visit and my second visit to the sauna

Wow this post is old - sorry about that. I've been sort of busy but mainly when I get home from work, I'm tired and don't feel like typing. Since I'm not getting paid to write this, I don't stress out about not doing it!

So you know from my last post that Jayden was in town for a couple of weeks. During that time, we had either lunch, coffee, dinner or some combination of those almost everyday. It worked out really well for him because I don't work during the day and Dallas doesn't work at night, so he always had someone to keep him company. We talked a lot about law school, and my future and things we both want out of life and goals and stuff like that. He's really easy to talk to about that stuff because he's in a similar position as I am and there's no real pressure from him.

On Thursday, I went to the sauna with Kyeung He. The one we went to the first time was closed for yearly maintenance, so we went to another one called Daytime (or something like that). It was much smaller and not nearly as nice. She mentioned to me that everyone was staring at me and asked if I was ok. I basically got used to it after the first few minutes, so I was ok. This place had some cool high pressure water jets that you could sit under. So we did those. The other new experience was that Kyeong He scrubbed my back and I scrubbed hers. This was totally weird and yet not at the same time. She asked if we do this at home and I was like, no. We are very secretive when it comes to bodies. Which is weird because in other ways we're totally out there as a culture. After the sauna, we met Jayden for lunch at a cold noodle place. It was pretty good. Then we had to go to work and Jayden went to study at a coffee shop.

The next week was basically the same. He got really sick on Monday and after dance class I went to check on him. He had been throwing up all night and was dehydrated. So we didn't go out that day, but I sat with him for a little while and made sure he had some water. By Tuesday he was feeling a little better and we met up for coffee and I worked on writing cover letters and wanted to throw my computer on the ground. Thursday was his last day in Jinju and Dallas skipped lunch at school to meet us at a pasta place, then he had to go back and I had my final coffee with Jayden. I will hopefully see him again at some point in our lives. I will definitely keep in touch, but as everyone knows, email, texts and skype aren't the same as being with someone in person - even if it's just for coffee.

I know this post is super choppy and not as detailed as usual, but honestly, I don't feel like writing down every latte I drank and restaurant we went to right now :)

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Sunday with my boys

Last week is still coming (although it's not that exciting), but I'll go ahead and tell you about Sunday first because I remember it better. I woke up and got some cleaning done. Then I met Dallas and Jayden for brunch at Stammetisch (one day I will find the correct spelling of that place). Dallas and I split our usual brunch plate and a mushroom salad, which was really good. While we were eating, we talked about the fact that we should have a membership or stamp card because we eat there almost every Sunday. I think one of the people must have heard us because, while he was paying, they asked if he wanted to set up a membership. I think he did, but I wasn't really paying attention.

After that, we took a cab up close to the zoo/lake area. We stopped off at the coffee shop there. Dallas and Jayden rode the skybike that I've mentioned before. Dallas wanted Jayden to ride it because he's sort of afraid of heights and roller-coasters and stuff. Jayden hated it. Then we ordered take-out coffees and walked up to the observation platform above the lake. We took some pictures, then walked down to the zoo.
There is a kakao talk emoticon with a cat pinching a dog's face and this was our remake of it.
Not sure what we're doing, but Jayden goes, "I look good" and he does, so I included this picture.
We spent a little over an hour at the zoo, checking out the animals. We had fun and Dallas fed the monkeys with food that other people had thrown at them earlier. One monkey was a snatcher.
A good picture of the dog and lion. I don't know if I've ever seen this lion awake and I've been to the zoo a handful of times.
This baby llama was pestering the mom. It finally settled down and used it's mom's butt as a pillow.
Dallas with his favorite animal - a camel. Still not sure why.
Baby monkey snuggling with mom.
Feeding the baby monkey.
He hopped the fence to pet the donkey. So he was the jackass. Luckily no staff people were around us, so nothing happened. Even luckier, I had wet wipes in my purse.

After the zoo, we walked to the pavilion on the other side of the lake (well not really, but a different place) and then walked down a wooden path to the bus stop. The buses were acting weird and wouldn't let anyone on, so we walked further down to another bus stop.
We hopped a bus downtown and split a huge fruit patbingsu at a place I used to eat at but can never remember the name. It begins with a C though.
Again, not sure why it's turned. But this was awesome. Some ice cream, shaved ice and lots of fruit. The kiwi was super sour though. And I'm never a fan of tomato on ice cream.
This place is super girly so I made them do this Korean pose. Nerds!
After that, we hopped a bus back to our area and went to the grocery store to get supplies for dinner. Jayden is a good cook and made a chicken stir-fry/soup sort of thing with lots of veggies. We also had grapes and plums and Dallas's landlady gave us baby watermelon. We took everything upstairs and ate on the roof. It was a perfect night - slightly cool and not too humid. Then we had a mini dance party.
My boys getting ready to eat!
Dinner - yum!
After dinner, we cleaned up, then walked down to the river. Jayden will have to go back before the 4th of July, but Dallas wanted him to experience one, so we brought some fireworks and sparklers and lit them. The sparklers were fun, but the fireworks were lame.
He's a fire starter. This was about as high as they went.
Dancing with sparklers!
My arms are too short to take good selfies!
After the walk, I went home and skyped with some of my family, who are all at the beach this week. It's been raining on them, but hopefully the rest of the week will be nice!