Hubby and I went here www.koreahouse.or.kr last night.   

However due to poor & last minute planning (on my part) we only got to see the show and had no dinner.  Next time we do this, when we have guest here, we will go early, have dinner and explore Korea House.  The show was very entertaining and the time flew by.  The fan dance was my favorite and the boy band gave me a headache, but in the end, they were one of the most entertaining.  They also had a dance with all females & I swear it was the Hokey Pokey & London Bridge.  :)

The photo above is with some of the dancers after the show. 

Below is a picture of when they drug me on stage to dance with them.

This park is right outside of post, in fact if you follow the wall around post, you will run into it.  It did prove a little harder to drive to, as we ended up several blocks away & made 3 attempts before we actually arrived.  Once you are inside the park it is hard to believe you are in a huge city.  The park is very green and lush, it has a pond where you can feed the fish, and a great walking trail.  Something we have found here in Seoul, is that at most parks have a workout area, and sometimes when you are just waking in Seoul you will run into a "workout park".  I love it, you always see people working out in these areas, both the young and old.   Below is a picture of Hubby doing sit-ups in the park. 

Can you believe I am old enough to have a 12 year old?  Wait, don't answer that.  I think boy 1 had a good birthday, however when they start hitting double digits, it is harder to read them.  He did not want to do anything for his birthday, just stay at home.  In our house on your birthday, you get to do whatever you want and you get to eat whatever you want.  Boy 1 ordered a sausage roll for his birthday breakfast, something we traditionally have on Christmas morning.  For lunch he wanted Korean ramen, and for dinner he requested a baked potato.  He was very easy this year.  He woke up early so hubby could be home for the morning festivities.  Some of you may not know this about boy 1, but he is my candy junkie.  He would O.D. on candy if it were possible, so when I heard about Dylan's Candy Bar, a store in NYC, opened by Ralph Lauren's daughter, I knew where to go for his birthday!  He loved all the goodies, and has already gone through most of the candy & it has only been 24 hours. 

This is what I made with the fresh basil and mozzarella.  This is a quick and easy sandwich & is great for sports nights when you are running out of the house and don’t have time to make a big dinner.  I served it with a side salad.  I found this recipe in the May issue of Cooking Light.  Everyone loved this sandwich, so much so it is going to be a staple in our house.   I followed the recipe pretty closely; however I did use a little more basil, prosciutto and mozzarella.

 

1 (12-ounce) loaf French bread, cut in half horizontally
1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded fresh mozzarella cheese, divided
2 ounces very thin slices prosciutto
2 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced
Cooking spray

1. Hollow out top and bottom halves of bread, leaving a 1/2-inch-thick shell; reserve torn bread for another use. Spread 2 tablespoons mayonnaise over cut side of each bread half. Sprinkle basil and 1/2 cup cheese on bottom half of loaf. Top evenly with prosciutto, tomato slices, and remaining 1/2 cup cheese. Cover with top half of loaf. Cut filled loaf crosswise into 4 equal pieces.

2. Heat a grill pan over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add sandwiches to pan. Place a cast-iron or other heavy skillet on top of sandwiches; press gently to flatten sandwiches. Cook 3 minutes on each side or until bread is toasted (leave cast-iron skillet on sandwiches while they cook).

This is what I made with my fresh cilantro.  As you might imagine, Mexican food is hard to come by around here.


6-7 Roma tomatoes
1 bell pepper
1 bunch green onions
1 bunch fresh cilantro
1 jalapeño
Crushed red pepper
Kosher salt
Fresh crushed black pepper

·          Chop first 4 ingredients - I do this by hand, but you can use a food processor if desired
·          Depending on the level of heat you desire, leave the seed in or take them out of the jalapeño before chopping
·          Add the last 3 ingredients to taste


I like to let my salsa sit in the fridge for about 1 hour before eating, although that is not necessary.

ENJOY!

This place is crazy fun, hubby and I went to Dongdaemun last night for a little night shopping.  You cannot believe the insanity. There are people everywhere, and get this, the malls are open till 4AM!  Now, these are not your typical malls, one mall we went into was 10 stories high, with 2 basement levels.  Also, the mall itself is a bit different, there are no doors taking you into stores, they are all out in the open, some separated by glass walls, or partitions of some sort.   Not all malls are like this, but this is what I found to be true of the ones in Dongdaemun. There are also tons of street vendors all over the place, and people dancing and singing in front of the malls.  An interesting thing I have found here is that Koreans love to wear shirts with English on them, now it may not be proper English, and sometimes the shirt actually insults the person wearing it,  and most of the time they do not get our sayings quiet right.  Like these two, the SOCK YOUR KNOCKS OFF is my favorite, I have no idea what the Nutrigrain bar has to do with it.

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Boy 2 was just trying to help the grounds keeper by pulling all the weeds for him.

I must have done something right.  Today I went to the commissary (grocery store); they had FRESH CILANTRO, FRESH BASIL, & FRESH MOZZARELLA!  I was so trilled, it is not often I have found these items here.  THEN something else great happened. A strange man came up to me and said he had something to give me.  I was a bit nervous, but said “OK”, while reaching into his folder he said, “I am Santa Clause”, he thanked me for buying General Mills products, and gave a $25 commissary gift certificate to me!

We took a speed boat over to Managaha Island.  Managaha Island is a little island off Saipan that takes 7 minutes by speedboat to get to.  On the way there,  the driver ask if we would like to see a sunken WWII Japanesse fighter plane, the water was exceptionally clear and clam on this day, so he was certain he would be able to find it.  There it was, in tact, you could see the propeller, the body and wings, the tail had broken off and it was a little further behind it.   It was amazing. 

The island behind us in this picture is Managaha.

When we arrived on Managaha Island I was amazed, the water was even more clear here than on Saipan.  I didn’t think this was possible.  We settled under a tree on the uninhibited sided of the Island….I really felt like we were on LOST.  The root system on some of the trees were incredible and could have been right out of the TV show.  If only the island were bigger, I would have thought we were there.  We had a great time playing on the beach and in the ocean.   Snorkeling was fun, Hubby and I even saw three, three feet sharks swimming along.  I wish we could have gone diving on this trip. Next time we will have to travel with friends or a sitter. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from our vacation.  The Island in the background is Saipan, the person is boy 1.

After a couple of hours we moved to the more populated side of the beach.  The white sandy beach went on forever.  The sun was SO strong.  We rented an umbrella and put sunscreen on multiple times, wore swim shirts, (we had friends warn us about the sun here), but most of us still ended up with sunburns somewhere on our bodies. 

By the end of the day boy 3 was pooped.

On the boat ride back to Saipan we saw a HUGE Sea Turtle floating along in the water.

White sandy beaches and crystal clear water – that is Saipan.   Our first adventure out, we explored our resort.  It is amazing resort with all sorts of activities to keep everyone busy. There is a small playground, rock wall climbing, snorkeling, paddle boats, kayaks, a small water park area for the littlest of guest, 2 water slides, tether ball, volley ball, a lazy river, basketball, tennis, water walk, miniature golf, windsurfing, several pools, a kids club, 3 restaurants and of course the white sandy beach.  This beachfront was a little different than any I have ever been to, as there were NO waves.  Hubby didn’t like this about the beach, however I loved it.  I get a little freaked out by waves, and it was great for the little kids, they weren’t being knocked down by waves coming in. This was the first time boys 2 & 3 have ever been to the ocean.  Boy 2 settled right in, running and playing in the water.  Boy 3 liked it until he got his hands sandy…. he just stood there with his hands up saying “I dirty, I dirty”.   He really enjoyed the paddle boats, kayaks & hanging out in the lazy river and swimming pools.

Boy 1 really enjoyed the rock wall.  He did this several times and he even got me to try it.  I think he was quite impressed that his mom could climb the wall.  However he did go to level 3, and I only went to level 2 of the wall. (I could have made it on level 3 if I had just tried :)

Girl tried snorkeling for the first time and she did GREAT!  She snorkeled all over the place checking out the beautiful fish.  There were tons of little fish everywhere, you didn’t even have to snorkel to see them the water was so clear.  By the last day of our trip we could barely keep up with her. Girl also tried her hand at windsurfing. 

On our last day, boy 2 decided to try snorkeling.  He was a bit nervous, but really wanted to try it.  He tried to back out several times, but finally stuck his face in.  Once he realized it wasn't scary he was pointing fish out left and right, I could barely keep up with what he was pointing at.  His best find was some sort of sea snake, we followed it all over for quite some time.

Being in Saipan was a bit sad too.  The beach our resort sat on, San Antonio Beach, in WWII over 20,000 US service members lost there lives here.  It was hard sitting on this beach knowing this.  Saipan has a ton of WWII history.  For those of you that did not know, (I didn’t even know that Saipan existed before we moved to Korea) Saipan is a US Territory.