I hope you all have had a wonderful week. I can't believe we are already in October. We have been enjoying beautiful weather here in South Korea, and this past weekend, we took advantage of it and headed outside for a few adventures.
On Saturday, the kids and I went to the office with Dave for a little while. This particular excursion brought back fond memories of visiting my dad's work when I was kid. It was always so fun because he let us climb in all of the tractors and stuff. I am glad Mitchell and Darci get to hang out with Dave at work sometimes. I am sure they will look back on it fondly, as well.
Daddy's playground
she is picking up some Korean habits
not quite the tractors I played in as a child
really intent on his book
always the artist
look at that masterpiece
hey Dad, can I try on the rest of it
SURE!
Why not the whole family!
After a quick lunch, we headed over to 2nd Market to try to find the lady who makes these Korean pancakes called Hoddeok. These are pancakes filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and ground up walnuts and served warm......ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Unfortunately, we were unable to locate her, but took a few pics of the market for you guys to see.
one rack of dog apparel
I think Joansie could really pull this one off!
yep, that's a table of underwear next to the kimchi stand
kimchi, kimchi, kimchi
bowls of bean paste for sale
can't say I would ever purchase one of these
or any of these dried fish!
After our failure to find the Hoddeok, Darci and I decided to head over to LotteMart to see what we could find there. Darci snapped a few pics while we were here, and we hit the jackpot in the Hoddeok department. WE FOUND A MIX! I can't tell you how happy that made me. We were going to have some for dessert. Before we could do that, we decided to try a new place to eat and headed over to the Pho Bien, a Vietnamese restaurant down in New City, for dinner.
Burdock - a type of root eaten as a vegetable
kiwi, anyone?
how lettuce is sold here
seaweed for sale
☺
love the English translations found on products
silk snails?!?!?!
our first time eating Vietnamese
our little teapot
ligour?
Pho (noodles) with steak, beansprouts, green onions in broth
shrimp wrapped in noodles and fried.....YUM!
And now for the Hoddeok.....
sooooo TASTY
Whew! That was one BUSY Saturday! Sunday was just as busy for us. We decided to head out of town for the day and visit the DMZ. There are several places along the DMZ where people can take tours. Some of the tours are restricted to ages 10 and over, therefore we would not be able to take Darci. We did, however, find an observatory that you can tour on your own and allows kids, so off we went. The place we were visiting is just outside of a city called Paju. The Odusan Unification Observatory is located where the Han and Imjin Rivers meet.
where we went
along HWY 77
the observatory
beautiful view from the top (South Korea)
This highway runs along the DMZ...barbed wire and guard houses
can be found the entire length of it.
not sure what this is but very interesting
warning sign as you enter the observatory parking area
prayer alter for unification
statue of Godang Cho Man-sik
organized the Joseon Democratic Party to organize
a liberal democratic unified nation
yes, I am taller than a North Korean soldier
Dave looks like a giant compared to him
Koreans have cartoon characters for everything!
It makes everything seem soooo HAPPY!
checking out the North Koreans
can't believe that I am standing across the river from North Korea
It's quite pretty from here.
children's toys
dolls that have blond hair and blue eyes!
liquor
replica of a North Korean school room
he fits quite nicely, don't you think?
a replica of a typical home
the wishing room for unification
ceremonial drum
yep, we're tourists
they sold a few North Korean products
I bought these Pine Mushroom Chocolates
they are very good
monument for a unified Korea
music playing outside was "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King
these concrete structures are found throughout the area
they are rigged with explosives to be blown in the event of an invasion
so that the road would become impassable
While in Paju, we also decided to visit the English Village. This is a place where Koreans can go and be immersed in ENGLISH. The village starts with the visitor being issued a "passport" and having to process through immigration. There are Native English speakers who work there to teach Koreans English. They had English street signs, menus, a city hall, a bank, police station, etc. There was an are called the Tribal Village where there were houses with tribe names on them. I am not sure what that had to do with English, but it was there. It was like walking through a ghost town. We kind of felt like we were in the TWILIGHT ZONE. It was strange. We did meet a guy who was working there from Kansas, though. It is very difficult for me to truly explain how weird this experience was. I guess you just had to be there. Maybe the pictures will help.
too funny
immigration
its a pretty large complex
not something you would see in most "English Villages"
Darci thought this guys' pants were funny....a big number nine pocket
decorated for Halloween
a "convenience" store....not a STORY
as opposed to a "FAKE" one
in the English book store
Yes, you would see this everyday in an English country....NOT
city hall
RANDOM Korea just pops up anywhere
LOL
they had some beautiful garden areas
a strange deck
an outdoor theater
LOVE IT!
pretty
fall has arrived!
one of the tribal houses
tribes included: Aborigines, Zulus, Cherokee, Mongols, Incas,
Aztecs, Romans, Celtics, Navajos, and Egyptians
each house had its own sign......WHAT do these have to do with
learning ENGLISH?
very eerie....we were the only ones around
concert hall
Darci always finds the art activities
the guy from Kansas is in the green and white striped shirt
her mask
So there you have it! It was a lot, right? As you can imagine, we are quite tired from our weekend trip and I believe I am going to relax now. I hope you enjoyed our weekend adventure. Let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to know about and I will try to include it in a future post. You can always comment below. So until next time...... annyeonghi geyseyo!
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