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Taejongdae Park, Busan

9/14/2012

While researching things to do I stumbled across information on Taejongdae Park. I was excited to go as I read things like "Taejongdae is a natural park, dense evergreen trees & a lighthouse". PLUS, it is #6 on trip advisor under things to do in Busan. The parts I missed were you can ride around the entire park by train and as the park has a manmade street/path all the way around the park. Although this hike was not what I was expecting we had a great time.

All the people riding this train looked at us like we were crazy to be walking since it is super cheap to ride the train. :)

We found this totally cool spider muching on a few things he found in his web.

Taejongdae is known for its rocky beaches and magnificent cliffs facing the open sea on the southernmost tip of island of Yeongdo-gu. We had a great time playing on the rocks and enjoying a little family time....

....while the teenager viewed us from a distance while texting his girlfriend.

We went on a perfect day! Not too hot, but still nice enough to enjoy!

Hubby has recently started a salt water fish tank. He has done tons of research and discovered it is best to add sea water, live rocks and anemones straight from the ocean to your tank. He we are searching for goodies to add to the tank.

Here are some of our goodies that are now living in our fish tank. :)
Just in case you were wondering - I have the best husband ever.

Finally Boy 1 happily joined us (after I threatened to take his phone away and to embarrass him beyond belief if he didn't join us).
He really dislikes his picture being taken, but I think he is just so stinkin' handsome I can't help snapping a few pics of him.

What is this strange looking thing in the middle of our 'nature' hike?

It was a pretty foggy day, but when we looked through the telescopes we could see Japan just beyond this little island.

Cargo ships....I'm pretty sure my friend Michelle's stuff is on one of those. :)

Boy 3 thought these little fire hydrants were pretty cool.

The Mother/Child statue & me with my children.

King TaeJong (whom this park is named after) traveled to many places but this was the place he enjoyed
shooting arrows and so they honor him here with this lovely arrow art thingie .

The lighthouse. (Obviously.)

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Ahhh...This is the Life!

9/11/2012

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Who would have thought Busan, South Korea would have such a fun little beach area right in the middle of a SUPER BUSY town?!

The view from our room on the 26th floor at 8AM on a Monday morning.

The three little kids and I head to the beach while the big boys slept. We were the only people on the beach for over an hour and we had an amazing time!

How fun is this picture? Our kids are awesome!

Love it! :)

Having WAY too much fun!

I can't help but smile when I look at these fun pictures!

After an hour or so Hubby and Boy 1 joined us.

Two of my favorite cuties!

Can you believe how big they are? I can't.

They have deliver services on the beach. I almost felt like I was at a baseball game. We bought fried chicken from the guy that was speaking Hangul (Korean) and then he looked at me and said 'chicken'. I said 'nay' - which means yes in Korean, which is TOTALLY confusing because most American think 'nay' would mean no, but they shake their head yes when they say 'nay' and 'nay' means yes ~ got it? Anyway, I bought the chicken and then I ask for the Cass guy (beer guy). He came right over. Chicken and beer...that is how they do it here in South Korea ~ Hubby makes fun of me and asks me "Why do you always say South Korea? ~ Like people would think we live in North Korea?" Whatever. That's the way I roll. South Korea.

Chicken and Beer in SOUTH KOREA.

Boy 2 with his hole.

Our FREE babysitting service.
No joke, these guys played with our kids for at least 2 hours!!! It was AWESOME. They took pictures, buried them in the sand, and played in the water with them and all the time I lounged. Ahhh...life is good. :)

Good times, great fun Busan (or Pusan - P's and B's are interchangeable here) SOUTH KOREA.

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Birthday, Busan & Beach! (Day 1)

9/8/2012

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Hubby has the best birthday EVER! Labor Day weekend always falls right around his birthday meaning he always get a long weekend attached to his birthday! This year his birthday fell on Saturday - we woke up, had ice cream cake for breakfast and then hit the road to Busan for a relaxing weekend in the sun!

We couldn't decide to take the KTX or drive to Busan - in the end we drove THINKING it would be cheaper, but since we had to rent a car (we didn't trust our hooptie to make it to Busan - a 5 hour drive) and pay our more money in tolls than we expected (over 50,000 won!) AND having to buy gas off post (CRAZY expensive!) ...well, we spent about the same amount of money as we would have it we had taken the train. Next time, KTX here we come. 2.5 hours each way vs. 5 hours each way....learn from our mistakes and fork out the $$ and take the train - this way you can drink on the way and the fighting in the backseat won't seem as painful! :)

At a rest stop having a little snack.

This trip I took advice from my Korean friend. "Never rent a pension on the beach. They are too expensive, dirty and a party place."

This time we stayed in a hotel. When we walked into the room Hubby exclaimed, "WE HAVE BEDS!" He was SO happy as he had been sleeping on the floor for the past two weeks during the military exercise he was on.

Don't worry, they brought in extra bedding for the kids.

We even had a cute little kitchen with a fridge. Ahhh, life is good in a hotel. See the glass wall to the left of the picture (and to the right in the picture above)? That is our bathroom. Very cool.

And even though we had a western style hotel, the towels were still scarce.....this is what we got - 2 hand towels and 1 bath towel. I ask for more I got the big "NO - no more, only exchangie".

We had an amazing view:

It actually took us 7 hours to get to Busan with stops and our GPS kept taking us the LONG way. Finally we gave up on the GPS and used a good old fashion map. So when we finally got to Busan and got checked into our hotel it was pretty late, but we had to go out and hit the beach for a little moonlight stroll.....

This was the night of the Blue Moon back in the states...

Boy 3 being a trouble maker....

He had just splashed his brother, who didn't want to get wet...

After hanging with the kids on the beach for a while we tucked them in bed with Boy 1 babysitting and headed out for a birthday date night with my man.

A cute little shopping area near Haeundae Beach where we were staying.

We found this cute little restaurant with tables outside - perfect for eating and people watching.

That girl is cutting Kimchi....I've never had a Kimchi girl before - how fun is this?!?

One would think you would get pork at a place called "Pig Dream"....

After dinner...Hubby wanted soju for his birthday celebration. God help me! :)

I SO want this planter for my front yard! :)

Happy Birthday to my Hunk of Burning Love! Here's to many more together.

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Things That Make You Go Humm.....

9/6/2012

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I am BURSTING with EXCITEMENT!!!!
I'm having a hard time holding it in.
If you see me today I will be grinning from ear to ear!
I still need to buy a couple of more things:
2 liter bottle of soda (which I can't find here...HELP!)
Chocolate Syrup.
Mentos.
Can you guess what I am up to?

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Not Quite Right #6 / Pretty Good Chinese

9/6/2012

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Oh my gosh - an entire menu of not quite right.

Please pass the braised fork, I can't get enough of it.

Oh, and the Braised Minced Pork Balls, well those are my FAVORITE.

Ummmm.....Noodiles.

Cold Jelly Fish sounds DELIGHTFUL!

Noodiles with Sea Food of Sauce, yes please.
Noodiles of Food Soup, even better.

There is so much going on here I don't even know where to start.

But the Noodiles were freaking amazing. We loved EVERY bite! :)

And the Yaki - WOW! Hubby's all time favorite.

To get here from post - go out the Kimchi Pot gate.
Turn right.
Go under the street - emerge to the right.
Turn left on the first ally.
Look for this sign.
Don't walk away after looking at the menu.
It really is good.

And plus, who doesn't love a spoonful of taste?

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First Day of School 2012-2013 School Year

9/5/2012

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As it happens every year, the end of summer party means the start of a new school year....
Our end of summer party always falls the Friday before the first Monday of school.
Mom even has anxiety for the first day of school at a new (but old) school.

Here we go:

Big 1st grader!! And he was TOTALLY ready for 1st grade! Seeing how his birthday falls 1 week past the school cut off he was done with Pre -Kindergarten & Kindergarten (and after 4 years of it I was done with it too)! He went into his 1st grade classroom like a CHAMP! It helped that he had a buddy in his class.

My amazing 4th grader! He is my stressor. Check out his nails, he chews them off. This sweet boy is worries about way too much for his age. He broke my heart the first day of school and almost brought me to tears. He didn't know ANYONE in his class. Yes, I was that stalker mom hanging out the outside of his classroom peeking in for a 1/2 an hour just to make sure he was doing ok. (And he was.)

EXTROVERT. No need to worry here. She already knew 4 people in her class. She was ready to dive into 5th grade.

A JUNIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL?!?! Where oh where did my baby go? I can't believe he is a JUNIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL! OMG. Notice his picture is inside? He wouldn't go outside for me this year. I reminded him (through sobbing and tears) that he only has one more year to take a picture like this. He insisted I take it in the house. I just love this boy and I can't believe he is almost there....

All of our kids had a great first week of school (even Boy 2!). Boy 1 came home and told me it was like a reunion. He knew someone in all of his classes and he had lunch with an entire group of old friends from here and different military post. How AWESOME is that?

They were all super excited that on day 2 of school there was NO SCHOOL due to Typhoon Bolaven. A Typhoon day, go figure! We were held up in our house all day waiting and waiting for the Typhoon to hit. We had nothing more than a few strong winds and power was out for about 1/2 an hour. Even though it was a blessing that Seoul didn't get hit hard I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. We were hunkered down, food was stocked, cookies were baked, candles were on stand-by and board games were ready to be played. In the end it reminded me of the 'earthquake' we had in Central Texas last year. Remember that one? I didn't think so.

Happy new school year everyone! It's going to be a GREAT year!

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3rd Annual Water Balloon & Popsicle Party!

9/4/2012

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With over 2,000 water balloons & and close to 1,000 popsicles this was our largest Water Balloon & Popsicle party to date.

End of Summer - this is a bittersweet party. The kids wait for it all year. It is their favorite party, BUT they also know it means school is right around the corner so even though they CAN'T WAIT for it to happen, the CAN WAIT for it to happen.

With us just moving here 2 months ago we weren't sure what to expect from our WB&P party. First we had invited just our friend that we had returned to (all 3 of them) and the few we had met over the past 2 months. I started it as a Facebook invite, then people started asking if they could invite friends, we said sure and the party grew, and then the more we thought about it we decided it would be rude NOT to invite our ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD since we were taking over one of the parks in the neighborhood. So with that though our party went from about 20 kids to well over 100 kids. Yes, just call us insane.

Same rules applied from last year:
Each family must bring 100 FILLED water balloons to the party.

And since so many people were coming this year we ask each family to bring a box of popsicles:

This wasn't even all of the popsicles. Notice all the popsicles on the bench? Those boxes are full too....(and there were more in my freezer)

How handsome is this boy?!

Kids were getting sick from eating so many popsicles. They were calling me the 'popsicle pusher'.

Before the water balloon fight the kids were busy filling up on popsicles, playing on slip and slides and just having fun in our ghetto Great Wolf Lodge water park.

Ground Rules:
I had all the kids sit in the grass to go over a few rules.
#1 - you must sit here until I tell you to go
#2 - watch out for little kids & don't throw balloons hard at them
#3 - no water balloons to the face
#4 - do NOT throw balloons at parents with cameras
#5 - teens are a free for all
#6 - after the water balloon fight eveyone that participates MUST help clean up broken water balloons!
#7 - HAVE FUN!

It took an Army (pun TOTALLY intended) of Mom's & Dad's to take the water balloons from our back yard to the playground.

The Paparazzi:

Ready, set, GO!

Good view of the fun!

This is my favorite picture of the day. This is what makes this party worth it! :-)

My friend Beth is AWESOME! I am now the proud owner of Water Balloon party shoes!!

We added a new element to our party this year, FROZEN T-SHIRT CONTEST - my friend Beth was the brainchild of this event - she did 90% of the work that went into this even and she even designed the t-shirts! If children wanted to participate in the frozen t-shirt contest they had to pay for their t-shirt.

Behind the scenes: We dipped the t-shirts in water wrung them out just a little and them folded them as small as we could get them, stuck them in a ziplock bag and stuck them in the freezer. We did this 3 days prior and by the day of the event they were FROZEN SOLID. (We even let them thaw for about an hour and a half before the event.)

Kids with frozen t-shirts, ready to start:

Kids were trying EVERYTHING they could think of to get these shirts on; (or out of the bag!) they were sitting on them, dunking them in water, biting them, throwing them on the ground, jumping on them and giving them to their moms! It was all VERY comical!

The first one to get her shirt on!
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Double fisting it!

We had 60 kids participate in the frozen t-shirt contest! Here are a few of them!

The perfect ending: a popsicle stuck to her shirt.

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“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you
did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

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Hi, I'm Trish, the writer, creator and photographer of this blog. I started this blog for 2 reasons, 1 - When I found out we were moving to Korea back in 2008 I was a little freaked out and started scouring the internet for information on Korea. At that time there wasn't much out there so I am doing my part in helping families across the world not be so freaked out when it comes time to move to Korea. The 2nd reason I started this blog was to help stay connected to family members back in the states. Today it is so much more that.
I hope you enjoy our journey.

Are you moving to Korea? Do you have questions, concerns? Are you freaking out? Freak out no further - click the button to ask a question. I'll do my best to answer open and honestly.

Moving to Korea?

Taejongdae Park, Busan

Ahhh...This is the Life!

Birthday, Busan & Beach! (Day 1)

Things That Make You Go Humm.....

Not Quite Right #6 / Pretty Good Chinese

First Day of School 2012-2013 School Year

3rd Annual Water Balloon & Popsicle Party!

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