Mickey D's

Tonight we went to Home Plus, which is sort of like Target, and bought a few things like this amazing water bottle. It's the only way I can feel amazing freshness!

We also went to McDonald's for dinner. I love going to McDonald's here. We don't go often, because it seems kind of silly to call a cab to take you for fast food, but since we were already out we figured we'd stop and get a burger. It's so posh-looking, huh?

 

They also have a really interesting system for throwing away your trash. You don't just go dump it all in one big bin. 

 

Lunch gets way more exciting when you're wondering if the Koreans are secretly judging you for throwing your left-overs away in the wrong order or something! Also, McDonald's here delivers. On motorscooters.

 

Sadly they don't come on post. :( Actually, that's a good thing.

 

And today's last two pictures are of drinks that we enjoy here. Pocari Sweat, which is Reagan's new favorite, is sort of like Gatorade:

 

 

And Sunny 10, which is a really yummy grape soda. I had to get this specific one because it features the face of Taeyang, a singer in my favorite K-Pop group Big Bang. :)

 

The hangul on the can says Sunny Ten. Go me! I'm slowly learning!

 

 

Subway Tour of Daegu

The family on the subway.

What the heck is with David's face here?

Aiden was actually watching Dr. Who on that woman's phone.

 

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Yep, pig's head. According to our adorable interpreter Shawn, since this pig is smiling it is lucky and therefore more expensive.

They seem to just add random English words in the weirdest places. This was on all the kids' forks at the restaurant downtown today

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This was our treat at the end of the day. We stopped at Olive Mart and got pineapple Fanta and weird flavors of Cheetos, plus these amazing ice cream sandwiches that are shaped like fish. They have red bean paste in them, which sounds gross, but is so very very not.

 

And now that our household goods are here, off to unpack!

 

Ah, the weirdness.

So today I just wanted to show you our shower. We have two bathrooms in our apartment; the first one is a full bath with a normal tub and shower, and the second is our master bath. It does NOT have a normal tub and shower. The shower head is attached to the sink. This has taken some adjustment, but really it's not too bad. You just have to make sure you stand right next to the sink, and aim the shower head directly at your face, and don't move, and ... well, it's a process.

Woobang Land!

Today we went to Woobang Land with David's friend Jeremiah. Woobang Land, also known as E-World, is a small amusement park built around Woobang Tower. It's got a few roller coasters, a log flume, some kiddie rides, one of the smallest and saddest zoos I've ever seen, and it is full of Korean people who want to take my children home with them. Seriously. This is what happened before we even got up to the gate to buy our tickets.

A whole flood of Korean students ran up and wanted to hold both of the girls, and then they all wanted to have their pictures taken with our kids, and they kept exclaiming over them all, and as soon as Reagan said "annyeonghaseyo" (hello) they just about went crazy. And it was like that the whole time we were there! People would randomly walk up to the kids and stroke their cheeks, or take the girls by the hand and smile at them. A group of guys came up to Aiden and talked about his blue eyes, and then grinned and started to do the "Gangnam Style" dance, and when Aiden smiled and joined in they just fell over laughing. At one point Aiden said, "I think we're famous in Korea, guys."

Fame aside, the kids had a great time at the park. Lillie went nuts for the log flume, although Aiden (shocker!) wasn't such a fan. David and Jeremiah went on the bumper cars, which are much faster than the ones in the states. Seriously, I'd never let the kids on one of those things! Jeremiah was singling out the weaker drivers in the herd and ramming them as hard as he could while the kids and I laughed hysterically.

I don't have a good camera yet, but thank goodness Jeremiah brought his and got some decent shots, so here are the best from our day at Woobang Land.

Ha! So I AM going to blog!

We have been in Daegu for 18 full days now, and I've got to say I really like it here. We are living in David's apartment but will be moving on post on Tuesday (I'll post pics when we're settled in there) so -yippee!- we get to move again.

As it turns out, Daegu is quite huge. It is the fourth largest city in South Korea with over 2.5 million people, which means I am living in a city that is roughly the size of two Montanas. I can handle it just fine as long as I am walking around in the city, but when we were standing at the top of Woobang Tower looking out over Daegu today it was a bit overwhelming.

We do walk quite a bit here, since almost everything we need is really close. There are three army posts here in Daegu - Camps Walker, Henry (David's office), and George (housing and school) - and we can walk really easily to both Henry and George. There's a little shop down the street called Olive Mart where we can get fruit and veggies as well as Korean candy and stuff, and for anything more than that we just take a cab. There's also a really good subway system, but we haven't used that as much because it runs through downtown mostly, and we don't spend a lot of time there.

The kids have handled the transition really, really well. They're amazingly adaptive. They have all learned how to say thank you in Korean, so every time we climb out of a taxi the kids wave to the driver and say, "Kamsamnida!" and the drivers always laugh really hard. The language barrier has been the only downside so far, but we're working on that. The kids all believe they can speak Korean since they've been listening to K-pop music since before we left Washington.

The pictures today are the view from the top of Woobang Tower, and a few from Reagan's birthday lunch at Hello Kitty Cafe.