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Quiet weekend

We had a very laid-back weekend, but I don't think anyone was too disappointed. I spent most of my time fighting a cold and watching Chris play Xbox. Since Rachel had the most interesting weekend of all of us, I'm going to fill everyone in. She hung out with her Tae Kwon Do buddies Friday evening on post, and Saturday, she spent several hours at Tae Kwon Do practice, then ate with the team on post, and ended up at one of her teammates' houses later that evening to enjoy a home-cooked meal by one of the boy's Korean moms. Sunday, after getting misdirected by a well-meaning Korean on the subway*, she finally made it to church (only half an hour late). Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Coach Canon (boys' v-ball coach), and a couple of the other senior varsity girls played the JV girls in a friendly game at the high school gym. They also played the ladies' league (or as Rachel calls it, the "old women's team"), and I can happily report that Rachel's team won each of the games! One of Rachel's Taekwondo buddies, Anthony (whose mom cooked for the group on Sat. night), came to dinner Sunday night, and stayed for a few hours playing with Ozzy, and watching In Living Color Season 1, that I downloaded last week.
Sounds like it was a pretty good weekend for Rachel, although Chris and I really enjoyed just being home and being lazy (surprise, surprise).
*Koreans don't like to admit they don't know the answer to a question, so if you ask for directions, you may or may not end up in the wrong place. They tend to make stuff up, rather than say "I'm not sure". It's always best to just practice reading subway maps, or have a general idea of where you want to go before you leave...

Yongpyong Ski Resort

The USO offers ski trips at pretty cheap prices for anyone who is an American citizen-military, dependents, even ex-pats. Actually, they offer a variety of trips to different places, tours of the DMZ, palaces. You name it...
The trip we purchased included transportation to and from the Yongpyong ski resort (a 3 hour bus ride on the way there....4 or 5 hours on the way back), gear rental (skiis or snowboard), and a gondola pass (good for the regular ski lifts as well). We got to the mountain at about 10 a.m., but it wasn't until noon that we had finished getting our equipment, and got in line for the ski lift. The line for ski equipment was so incredibly long...I felt horrible, since Chris and Rachel had gotten their snowboards in about 5 minutes, and my skiis took at least 1/2 hour. After grabbing a Steff Hotdog in the lodge, we headed out onto the snow. Chris had to show me how to put on my skiis, but he forgot to explain how to get them off (I had quite a time figuring that out later). We stood in the most outrageous line for the ski lift, and made it onto the bunny slope after about 45 minutes. The first time down was quite a disaster for me, and I didn't even get to see Rachel and Chris' attempts on the snowboards. From what they tell me, they sat down almost every 10 feet, which I can believe, because once I got to the bottom of the hill, I waited for about 10 minutes and finally they showed up! I made it down pretty fast...a lot faster than I wanted to in fact. I didn't know how to "snowplow", so I was headed straight downhill at what felt like 100 mph. Since I also didn't know how to steer, I was headed straight for other skiiers, and fell twice, just to avoid flattening the poor things. The second trip down was a lot snower, after a quick lesson in "braking" from Chris. At the end of the day, I was ruling the bunny slope-going around people, zigzagging back and forth, going as fast or slow as I wanted. Of course, every time I started feeling cocky, I bit it. Usually in front of a bunch of kids who were zooming around like little demons who belonged on the expert slopes, not on the beginner's little hill. Chris and Rachel graduated to the intermediate slope after a couple hours, and had quite a blast-eventually they said they were able to stay on their feet most of the way down. Overall, I think we got about 4 hours of skiing (minus the waiting for skilift time) before we headed back the lodge to turn in our gear, and get some hot cocoa! We sat discussing our various achievements as we waiting for the rest of the USO group, and the bus ride home. All in all, I think a total of 8 hours in a bus for barely 4 hours of skiing is pushing the normal boundaries of what I would call "worth it". But we did have a blast, and for the first-timers, it was quite an experience. Of course, we plan on going back, but this time we might do it with a hotel room, and a whole day of skiing! We'll see...
Oh, I almost forgot, all the pics we took that day are here.

New day, new post

I haven't posted recently because, to tell you the truth, whatever news I would report to follow the announcement of my grandfather passing away seemed trivial. It's hard to just pick up right where you left off, when someone you love has died. Unfortunately for us, we are so far away from the rest of the family, on the other side of the world, and feel quite cut off at times. But life here continues at such a fast pace, that we can't help but just keep going. School, work, and the city, keep us rushing through the week at hectic speeds. Here it is, practically February, and it feels like we've just arrived...

Rod Miller

My grandfather died on Saturday, January 17, at 5 pm, after a long bout with cancer. Please remember him and us, his family, in your prayers.
You can read his obituary as well as other articles commemorating his life.
He was survived by his wife Jane, 8 children, 33 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild. We all miss him...

Walmart, Korean-style...

Well, we finally did it. We went to Walmart. Actually, it called itself a Walmart supercenter (not hardly...), and it was located south of the Han river not far from the Seollung subway stop. After a very crowded ride, which took us twice as long, because I failed to notice that even though we were headed toward Seoul National University of Education, there was also a Seoul National University the exact opposite way on the line we were travelling. What are the odds...So after turning around, we arrived at Seollung, and followed the directions I had gotten off the internet. The interesting thing about Seoul is that there are not really any street signs-no street names in face, only landmarks. So knowing that we were looking for the Hansol Phila building, which was across from Gaenari Apartments, we set out in a direction-just hoping it was the right one. Luckily enough, Chris' recognized the Hangul for Gaenari, so after walking about 3 blocks we knew we were headed in the right direction. And there it was just a couple hundred yards later-the rather large and garish Walmart Supercenter sign on top of a 10 story building. The actual store was in the basement of the building, and almost resembled an American Walmart. It had all the basic ingredients, if not a lot fewer products. And one thing that you notice right away, is that Walmart is far from cheap. It offers a lot of the same products-but the difference is that here, they are imports. Therefore...expensive. Would you pay 6,000 won for a bottle of Pantene Pro-V (about $6)? What was cheap there was the clothing, and I picked up a couple sweaters for about 8,000 won apiece. Too bad their clothing department was about the size of a 7-11. But besides the sweaters, we came away with a stove-top grill (Korean style), a garlic press, and a steel steaming bowl. So it was a pretty successful trip after all. There is a bigger Walmart towards Osan, but I'm just not sure its worth the trip...after all, we can pretty much find anything we need in either Namdaemun, Dongdaemun, Myongdong, Yongsan or Itaewon. Oh, by the way, we found the shops that sell wooden swords for practicing martial arts. I was buying some Taekwondo shoes, and we ran across the weapons. Rachel was practically drooling over them, so I'm sure she'll end up with one of each eventually! Anyway, we'll probably be doing quite a bit of wondering all over the city while Chris is gone in February (just trying to keep busy), so I'll try and take more pictures. Yes, I know I've been slacking lately, but its been cold out. My hands have been in mittens in my pockets!

Taekwondo...finally

Well, I finally started Taekwondo and it is kicking my butt. I started on Monday (today's Friday), and I am sore and feel like I have the lungs of an 80-year-old. It's a whole lot of fun though. Rachel's been sweet enough to help me practice in the evening, so I don't look to foolish in class.
For an update- I've been working everyday, about half the school day, and am just trying to keep up with the apartment cleaning and the laundry around here! Rachel will end her first semester next Friday, and is practicing 3 days a week with the Taekwondo Demonstration Team. She will also start practicing for soccer tryouts in the middle of February. My dear husband, Chris, will be headed down south the last week of January on TDY, and will be back in the States for the first three weeks of February, so he'll pretty much be gone for a month. I guess Rachel and I will have to get the next couple seasons of Friends and have our traditional marathon while he's gone! I'm sure Em will be glad to hear that...
Anyway, Chris finally gave the Xbox a rest after beating both Halo and Halo 2, but the weather has stayed in the teens or twenties, so we've been watching a lot of movies. We did have about a half an hour of snow flurries last Saturday, and some of it stuck to the ground. Rachel walked around that entire time with a huge grin on her face and her tongue out! Kinda gross, actually...
We had a wool coat tailor-made for Rachel, and are picking it up today in Itaewon-she's pretty excited to finally have a coat with long arms!!! She'll have a long weekend to try it out, since there's no school (or work) on Monday.
So that's about it for the Scott household. I hope everyone else is doing well, and enjoying the winter weather. I'm actually enjoying the cold this year, especially in our nice, cozy apartment with Ozzy to keep my feet warm.

Don't pick the shredded beef...

Last night was Rachel's first night out in town since she got back from Louisiana. We went to Itaewan to have dinner-she requested Korean food. So, we decided to go to Woori Garden, the first restaurant Rachel and I ever ate at when we got here. Anyway, so Rachel got to choose what we were having. With Korean BBQ, they show pictures of raw meat on the menu, and you get to pick what cuts you want, and whether you want them marinated or not, cooked with or without mushrooms and garlic, etc. So Rachel picked the marinated, shredded beef. We were pretty sure we hadn't had that one yet, as we usually get the pork belly, or the beef ribs (not like American ribs, by the way), so we all agreed that that sounded great. The food came out in about 5 minutes (it's always quick cuz you cook it at your table), and we were surprised to note that our waitresses starting setting all of our side dishes (kimchi, etc.) right on top of the grill that we thought was about to be turned on to cook our beef. Then they set down the entree itself...a beautiful pile of shredded beef (looked like beef spaghetti, almost) with shredded radishes and cucumbers..and a raw egg on top. The waitress stared at us for a minute, and after she realized we had no clue what was going on, proceeded to mix the raw egg up with the beef. I don't think we really believed that we were going to eat raw meat, so we asked her if maybe she forgot to turn the fire on. "No fire!" was her response. She smiled broadly and gestured that we should dig in...so we did. It was cold, but actually tasted pretty good. Especially if you wrapped a piece of the kimchi around it, or one of the other side dishes. They usually bring you 6 or 7 little dishes that are mostly all types of vegetables, but there's also one that's sort of a flat, chewy fish loaf kind of thing (my favorite, actually), and sometimes even some macaroni pasta with a sort of mayonnaise sauce, and one that has a couple crab legs covered in the traditional red, spicy paste. We still haven't figured out how exactly you're supposed to eat those. They also brought us some hot, kimchi soup-very good stuff, with tofu, and an assortment of vegetables. So all in all, we ate about 2 lbs of raw beef between us, plus 2 raw eggs. So if I don't show up on this blog again, it's because we came down with either mad cow disease, or salmonella. Or both...
It's the next morning and I feel fine, but it might take a while for the symptoms to show up. Rachel is going to make sure she finds out the word for "raw" or "uncooked" so that that NEVER happens again. Truth be told...it really wasn't that bad, and was actually tasty...but still.

Back to normal...

Well, the Christmas break is over, and our routine is getting back to normal. Rachel is over her jet lag already! I'm thinking I caught it from her though, because I haven't been able to keep my eyes open all day! The weather is getting colder, and hopefully we'll get some snow...I know Rachel is looking forward to that. Of course, it will get messy, so maybe we should just be happy with the beautiful sunny blue skies we have now.
I decided to go ahead and make a couple of resolutions for this New Year. One is that I am actually going to start Taekwondo already, instead of always saying I'm going to start...Two is that I will try and learn more Korean (I started tonight and learned several new phrases). I think having two resolutions is a good start right now, and I might add a third once I start working on the others. We'll see...

Double-take

You know you've been in Korea for a while, when you see a Korean in an American movie, and do a double take when he starts speaking English...
And when you don't even notice the Korean subtitles anymore...
And when you automatically assume that noone in a 100 ft radius speaks English...so you can say the dumbest stuff without being embarrassed (a little side note, when you can't figure out how to say something in Korean, James, you can't just blurt out "I love you!" because most people know that one, regardless of how much English they speak!)
Well, we're off to the airport now to pick up the rugrat, so I'll have to resume this topic later...

More pictures!

I totally forgot to include the link to the pictures of our New Year's weekend. So here it is: Sarah and Chris' New Year!

Happy New Year!!!

Well, Happy New Year to everyone...I can't believe this fall passed as quickly as it did. Chris and I had a quiet Christmas, and my wonderful husband took me out on the town for New Year's. We stayed in the Shilla Hotel, and visited Namsan Park, where Seoul Tower is located. We were planning on eating in the revolving restaurant located in the the tower, but forgot that we were low on won (and there's never a foreign card ATM when you want one). Instead we just enjoyed the view. It was a very clear day-the last of a really long stretch of wonderfully sunny, clear days, in fact-so we could see pretty far. Usually, even if the weather is nice, the pollution clouds your view, and the smog is pretty thick. I've heard that fall/winter is the best time to visit Seoul Tower, so I guess we just hit the right day! Anyway, the Tower also includes an observation deck, a museum, aquarium, tourist shop, games arcade, and restaurant. There are also small restaurants surrounding the tower base that serve Korean food and coffee. There are lookout points around the area, and a beautiful pagoda, as well as vendors selling traditional Korean gifts. We looked around for a bit, then walked about 10 minutes into Myeongdong for dinner. We ended up eating at Rimini (a pasta place that only served spaghetti!), and having dessert at Red Mango (a favorite hangout of the high schoolers, I hear).
The next morning, we had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel cafe-a buffet complete with Japanese and Korean foods. You know, most Asian cultures don't eat "breakfast food" like we do-their breakfasts include rice, meat, and usually soup. They did serve some American food like scrambled eggs, although I had to check the label to make sure that's what it was. I don't know how they did it, but they made scrambled eggs that looked like cheese grits...but they tasted delicious (and yes, tasted like eggs). Anyway, after feeling completely pampered after our wonderful meal, we decided to check out the rest of the hotel, and hotel grounds. They had an arcade in the hotel that included Hermes of Paris, Cartier, and other boutiques. Oh, and by the way, in Korea an "arcade" is not a place where you play video games, it generally means a shopping area. Next, we headed outdoors to the 10-acre sculpture garden. The sculptures are all contemporary pieces, and some of them were...shall we say, interesting? There was a beautiful pagoda at the top of the hill, and along one side of the property was the old south wall of the city. The wall was built in 1395, and used to line the southernmost part of Seoul. After climbing all over the place (the garden was very hilly), we headed over to the huge Shilla duty-free store. It was kinda funny, because as we got to the door, a bus of Japanese tourists was unloading, and guy was handing out coupons (I think). We walked in surrounded by 10 or so people, but he didn't think twice about skipping right over us-what, we can't pass for Japanese? Anyway, after perusing the GUCCI, PRADA, and LUIS VUITTON stores, and getting tired of our eyes bugging out from the $1200 shoes, and $175 wallets, we headed back to the hotel and checked out.
Oh, I forgot to mention what we did for New Year's Eve. We went out to our favorite place in Itaewon- Bless U- and had a few drinks. We felt like a few lushes though, because we were the only ones in there and it was 7:30 at night! After a couple hours of playing darts (and Chris beating me horribly), we headed over to 3 Alley Pub for a little more excitement. The place was jam-packed-it's a favorite spot for the ex-pat community, and they were handing out hats and noise-makers to ring in the New Year. Unfortunately, the Army didn't feel like extending the curfew until 1 am, so we had to leave at 11:45, in order to be home before 12! And to top it all off, there wasn't even a ball-dropping in Times Square on tv when we got home (since it was only 9 am in the U.S.)! Oh well...overall it was still a fun night.
But the best part of everything this holiday, both Chris and I agree, is that our upstairs neighbors finally moved out! (okay maybe not the best part, but pretty darn close). Now we're just praying for a nice, quiet Korean family to move in...