Today we visited Seoul Forest, a large park located about 20 minutes from our home.  It’s incredible to be in the middle of such an enormous city and find yourself in a serene, quiet, GRASS-COVERED! (there is no grass here anywhere) park.  Kind of like Central Park in NYC, I guess, but larger and even more of a contrast to the craziness outside.

We had a great time running around like maniacs, kicking the ball, playing on the play structure, blowing bubbles and enjoying our picnic lunch.

People find anywhere in shade and set up camp.  And when I say “camp,” I literally mean that they set up full-size camping tents and whole sites for the entire day.  Others, like us, roll out their picnic mat and snag a spot in the shade. 

Unbelievably cool play structure that kids can climb all over in

Max was a party animal at the park

If you’re going to come hang out in Seoul, though, there are a couple of things you need to know.  First, be sure to wear the proper footwear when out hiking in the park:

Second, don’t forget your matching outfits.  We see these all over Seoul:

Of the many things I’ve picked up during our stay in Seoul, the phrase ‘Oh! Ipoda!’ is the most widely used.  While I thought that my Korean friends might be saying “Hey look at that American dumb***,” I’ve since learned that it means ‘so cute!’ or ‘so handsome!’  I would love to say that this is used for me, but I think we can all agree that when it’s whispered or shouted constantly it’s at Sam and Max.  It’s usually accompanied by people touching Sam’s face or hands, trying to pick him up, taking pictures of him and with him, and giving him food.

Oddly enough, while Max has had his fair share of “oh ipoda’s,” he gets a much different reaction overall.  Mostly horror that he’s out in public.  In Korea, infants and new mothers are treated much differently postpartum than in the U.S.

After giving birth, Korean women typically remain in the hospital for at least a week.  During this time, they begin their recovery.  Almost none of them nurse their babies, both for aesthetic reasons as well as their belief that the mother’s body is practically wrenched apart during childbirth.  After their week-long stay at the hospital, women typically head to a rehabilitation center for about a month.  They spend that time as invalids, being cared for by either rehabilitation staff or, if they can’t afford to do so, at home being cared for by their mother.  It is believed that the mother’s bones are almost disjointed, and she is literally fed and cared for twenty four hours a day.

During this time, family members care for the baby.  Babies are not usually taken into public until they are at least 100 days old.  In fact, the 100 day birthday is a huge deal in Korea.  For a country so steeped in tradition, they still celebrate this monumental occasion from when not all babies survived past one hundred days.  Thus, the American motto of “have baby will travel” is not accepted very easily here.  Almost every time I’ve left our apartment with Max, which has been pretty much every day since I had him, I’ve had somebody comment to me that in Korea, babies are not supposed to be out until they are at least a few months old.  As I explain that in the U.S. babies are typically out immediately, the ajumas (old Korean women) chastise me.

Having a baby in a Korean hospital was, well, interesting.  The hospital that I delivered at, Soonchunhyang, is one of the older hospitals in Seoul but is right smack in Hannam, an expat-heavy district.  They even had a western menu.  “Western” might be used kind of loosely, but at least it wasn’t fish eye soup, which is what my friend Lindsay had after giving birth at a different hospital here.  We got a lot of laughs out of the translations, and signed a whole crazy amount of paperwork that we didn’t understand.  Still not entirely sure what we agreed to but we escaped intact with Max so I guess we’re good.  Some of the funny Koreanisms were:

When they give you a shot or draw blood, instead of telling you that you’ll feel a prick, they yell “PAIN!  PAIN!” or “HURT! HURT!”  I had more injections of random things accompanied by the nurse yelling at me than I would care to remember.

One of the days I was there, two giggling nurses came in (Korean women are always giggling when they have to talk to foreigners, I swear - it’s like they drew the short straw and have to deal with us).  One of them mustered up all of her courage, looked at me and said “artificially nipple teat?”  Uhhh, WTH are you talking about lady.  I had just finished being seriously manhandled by the lactation nurses and wasn’t in the mood to try to figure out some crazy translation for the billionth time that day, so I told them I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.  After they repeated the same phrase twice more and I said very irritably that I understood what they were saying but it didn’t make any flipping sense, they giggled and left the room.  As I started hysterically laughing and crying, they came back in with a pacifier drawn on a piece of paper.  Yep, artificially nipple teat.

Overall it was interesting.  A little scary being in an operating room full of Koreans yelling things at each other in a language I don’t understand.  I spent every second guessing whether they were yelling that I was bleeding to death or debating who made better kimchi but I guess it’s better that I don’t know.  The few times I flinched during the operation one of the guys felt the need to tell me EXACTLY what was happening.  Like “pull uterus out” or “pulling skin apart.”  Uhhhh yeah, thanks for that one.  And my incredibly dry OB (typical of Korean doctors, seriously no bedside manner at all) decided to mess with us when he pulled the baby out and poked his head around the sheet to say “It’s a girl!”  Todd and I were both very confused since I had had about fifteen ultrasounds and every time they took a money shot of Max.  Doctor Lee (there are about twenty Dr. Lee’s at this hospital) then poked his head around again, saying “I changed my mind.”  Ha ha you son of a gun.  Way to develop a personality when my guts are on the table.

One other interesting fact.  They keep the operating room doors open.  So as Todd walked by the other rooms, he got some interesting views of surgeries.  As I was wheeled out I could tell that the rooms were open but was very grateful I didn’t have my contacts in.

I was grateful to be in a private room since first, the labor rooms were enormous rooms filled with up to ten women all in labor lined up next to each other, and second, the post partum rooms each had six women, their mothers and their babies in them.  And they were only slightly larger than my private room.

I think over time a ton of other memories will come flooding back that I’m still trying to push back in my mind, but overall the experience was interesting, not all that different from the US procedurally, and I’m pretty damn sure I won’t meet many other people in the world that I can compare Korea birth stories with.

It appears that Korea has an “a job for everyone” program. This is evidenced when you enter a parking structure and instead of just taking a ticket, you are handed your ticket by an individual in white gloves wearing a uniform. You are then guided to a parking spot by sometimes no less than 5-10 people, all in these gloves/uniform.

Korean men wear tight, shiny pants.

If you are on an escalator in Korea and you are not planning to walk while riding the escalator, you need to move to the right FAST or you will get run over.

If I had a nickel for… every time a Korean person almost ran into me because they were either a) taking self photos while walking, b) powdering their faces, c) playing with their hair, d) texting or e) just not even remotely paying attention to what they were doing, I would be your richest friend.

Korean men and women do impromptu photo shoots all of the time.  Outside the grocery store, on the street, in front of a subway stop…  They might take 10-15 minutes and consist of dozens of photos of the woman in a variety of poses.  And no, these are not professional photo shoots.

Korea is the safest place I have ever been. I have no problem going into a store and leaving my stroller outside, walking around in the middle of the night, riding the subway late… It’s incredible.

Korean men wear shiny sparkly pink and purple neckties. The more sparkles the better!!

Korean men carry their woman’s purse for them…all of which seem to be Louis Vuitton (fake).

Old ajumas (old Korean ladies) retire and become …box collectors pushing a cart the size of a house filled with boxes that my husband couldn’t even push up a steep hill going about as fast as a snail.  Usually in the middle of the street.

Koreans smell like Kimchi and they say we westerners smell like butter!

Korean people are SO sweet to us foreigners and on a daily basis I get the warmest smiles (and giggles).

Koreans are WAY better dressers than Americans.  I think I was the only female in the whole country wearing shorts last summer.

Taxi drivers can be challenging.  When you give them an address to type in their GPS (in Hangul!), they let you know how much of an inconvenience you are as they pull out their reading glasses (most taxi drivers can’t see very well).  Taxi drivers also watch tv on their GPS’s while they drive, and veer four to five lanes from left to right constantly in search of fares.

Motorcycles and some taxis have blue and red flashing lights on them, which makes us constantly think the 5-0 is after us.  Although, they are the only flashing lights we typically ever see since police cars are extremely scarce here.  In fact, neither Todd nor I have ever seen a car pulled over but we occasionally see police cars driving around, always with their lights on.  Other motorists do not pull over for police cars or ambulances.

Todd and I are both becoming horrible drivers.  We’ve learned to avoid using our turn signals because when you turn them on, the car next to you immediately hits the gas to prohibit you from changing lanes.  We also will pull u-turns just about anywhere, never have any idea what the speed limit is, and typically drive in between two lanes (since you never know which one a taxi driver will come to a screeching halt in and stop traffic).

Cars have the right of way, not pedestrians.

You are there to serve store employees, not the other way around.  They will bump into you, hit you with carts, and let you know how much of an inconvenience you are.

Korean people hug, touch, hold and feed Sam constantly.

I am chastised on a daily basis for taking Max out in public, for not holding him if he starts to cry, for having him in short sleeves when it’s 80 degrees out…

You never have to wonder what a Korean person thinks.  My Korean friends told me that they “didn’t realize I would still look pregnant” shortly after I had Max.  They also told my friend Mike several times that they didn’t realize he was so fat.

My newest friends here are HeJeung, Yeon, J and Won Young.  Never thought I’d be programming those names into my phone.

Some random Koreaness for our homies.  Note that the Dunkin Donuts here has some seriously strange flavors (and yes, we have been trying them and they are as disgusting as they sound).  Also, the restaurant picture is typical here.  Each restaurant specializes in a type of Korean food, and they post pictures of the food on the front of the restaurant.  This is a Korean barbecue restaurant across the street from our building.  In the pic of the blue bus you’ll see the Baskin Robbins on our block.  We’re fairly well known there :)

We got to see Eric Clapton in concert at Olympic Park Stadium.  It was incredible!  We ate some fun Korean food there, but decided AGAINST the peanut butter coated squid.  Yum.  They have food stands with Korean food, then a small convenience store that sells beer, pop, etc.  Apparently this is how the Koreans party.  Clapton was fantastic, and we enjoyed watching our Korean hombres rock out to classics like “Cocaine.”  A great Seoul night.

I can still close my eyes and almost feel the heat of Thailand and listen to the waves crashing on the beach, but for the most part we’re finally resigning ourselves to the fact that we’re back in -8 degree C temps once again.  It was a very rude awakening getting off the airplane in Seoul at 5:50 Christmas morning, that’s for sure.

As much as we miss the warm tropical weather and the beaches in Phuket, somehow we’re all excited to be back home.  This is actually the first that I’ve really thought of Seoul as home, and I was looking forward to coming back and celebrating Christmas here with our little expat family.

Our trip began in Phuket, an island off of the southwest coast of Thailand.  Phuket was one of the regions impacted in the 2004 tsunami, and signs identifying the tsunami evacuation routes were prevalent on the streets.  Phuket is incredibly humid - so much so that our resort did not have screens over the windows and doors.  Residents have to keep all windows and doors closed with the a/c running, and even then Sam’s snack bags were all damp and stale within a day.

Thailand was incredible.  We got off with a bit of a speed bump when I discovered that our flight was not five hours (as I had originally thought), but actually six hours and forty minutes.  Whoops - my bad <insert pregnancy brain jokes here>.  So the flight was rather long and Sam didn’t sleep much but we arrived in Phuket (southern coast of Thailand) on time just after 11 pm.  I could almost hear the humidity laughing in the face of my bathroom bag full of hair goo and my straightening iron.  After a crazy fast drive through the winding hills of Phuket, we arrived at Katathani Resort around 12:30 am.  We set up the pack n play, Sam somehow made his way into it and we all passed out within a few minutes.  We woke to Sam laughing hysterically when he realized that he was in the same room as us and could see us, and so began our week of “relaxation.”  :)

Katathani Resort is absolutely phenomenal.  It’s in Kata, a more remote area of Phuket, and our resort had its own private beach.  If the wind ever blows you to Phuket you should definitely check it out.  Our room was just off the beach, with beautiful grounds and a pool in between.  Every morning we enjoyed breakfast in an open air restaurant overlooking the water, with an enormous buffet (including tropical fruit I’ve never seen before - upcoming gestational diabetes test be damned) with everything you could ask for.  We also had a chef preparing made-to-order omelettes or whatever egg creation you wished with a whole slew of veggies, cheese, ham and crab meat as options.

We were really creatures of habit for our entire trip!  We gorged ourselves every morning, then went onto the beach for the walk back to our room, cleaned ourselves off and played until Sam’s naptime.  After his nap we lubed up and headed out to the beach for sand and ocean time.  Sam absolutely loved the beach!  He was covered in sand from head to toe (and EVERY orifice, trust me), and loved going in the water to rinse off and get thrown up in the air by Todd.  Todd enjoyed a thai beer each day while I ordered whatever fruit combination I could come up with for a smoothie (they would then cut up my fruit, blend it with a little ice, and voila - the most amazing tropical smoothie you can imagine).  The water was absolutely crystal clear and while we could listen to the waves crashing, it was still calm enough to walk out and swim and enjoy it.  After we worked up appetites on the beach we would order lunch by the pool and Sam would run around as if he owned the place until he ran out of gas.  Nap #2, then either pool time or running around like crazy again after that, then dinner at the beachside restaurant where Sam could run around while we waited for food and dance to the music during dinner.  It was the kind of trip you fantasize about.  Maybe except for the part where Todd and I played cards in the bathroom until Sam fell asleep since we were in one big room, but you get the picture.

On the third day of our trip the three of us took an elephant ride through the jungle.  It was incredible!  Our guide sat just behind the elephant’s head on its back and used his feet behind the elephant’s ears to steer him.  He whispered stuff to the animal the whole way.  We sat in a large bench lassoed around the elephant and enjoyed our jungle tour.  I think Sam was fairly shocked by the whole experience and he was pretty quiet.  It definitely made an impact, though, as he hasn’t stopped making elephant noises since we got home.

We headed to Bangkok Wednesday afternoon.  Our room at the Vie Hotel was absolutely incredible, and Sam loved sitting in the floor-to-ceiling windows and watching the sky trains (elevated subways) go by every few minutes.  We ran into some issues the following day with our trip to the Grand Palace, where we got into a huge fight with our taxi driver and insisted he let us out in the middle of nowhere.  Who knew - the government of Thailand pays taxi drivers to take tourists to their gem factory instead of their destination.  According to our driver, it was Big Buddha Day and the palace wasn’t open yet.  And, they didn’t serve any food in the vicinity of the palace out of respect for Buddha.  Niiiice.  And 0/2 for truthfulness.  Anyway, two taxis later we arrived at the Grand Palace and saw the temple of the world-renowned Emerald Buddha (which is actually jade, pretty funny).  This is said to be the most important temple in Thailand, with only the King allowed in the vicinity of the statue.  Bangkok is amazingly hot so we didn’t last all that long but enjoyed our little trek through the extensive palace grounds.  As all FIFTEEN taxis we asked to take us back to our hotel refused to use their meters and tried to totally swindle us, we ended up taking a tuk tuk (little motorized bike with a seat on the back) back to the hotel.  An hour and a half of exhaust-filled gridlock was enough to convince us that we were done with taxis and tuk tuks for the rest of the trip.

Friday we spent on a tour of three palaces - the Temple of the Golden Buddha, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, and the Marble Temple.  We enjoyed the tour with our friends from Seoul, the Kadishes, whose trip to Bangkok overlapped with ours by that one day.  The temples were all amazing and the Buddhist monks absolutely loved Sam and Henry Kadish.

What an experience - once again we are overwhelmingly grateful to have the opportunity to see these incredible places!

Here’s a link to our pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/toddandjengordon/Thailand1210?feat=directlink

We’re all settling back in after a great visit/trip with Todd’s parents.  They came in on the 6th, stayed with us for a week and then the plan was to all head to China on the 12th for a week.

Sam had such a blast with his Mimi and Papa.  They came loaded with American goods: clothes for Sam, shirts for Todd, Reese’s PB Cups for me…  even the new Macbook Pro that we ordered.  It was definitely like Christmas in November.  They were also able to bring us all of our 0-3 and 3-6 month clothes for the baby so we’re feeling much more prepared :)

We definitely made the most of the week that we spent here.  On Sunday we traveled to a town at the outskirts of the DMZ (DMZ tours are no shorter than six hours long and we thought that might be a bit much with Sam, and the fact that they had just gotten in the night before).  We saw the Freedom Bridge and lots of interesting facets of the DMZ.  We came home, took some serious naps, and Brenda and I got ready for a night out.  We met friends Lindsay, Jan and Jen Onofray for a 10:00 dinner, then headed out to Dongdaemun Market for some midnight handbag shopping.  This market is renowned for its nightlife.  Although we were caught in the middle of a surprise thunderstorm and downpour, we had a great time and all managed to keep our eyes open long enough to tool around the markets for a couple of hours.

On Monday, Brenda, Ed and I went to Gyeungbokgong Palace, then Brenda and I toured Insadong while Ed took care of some business and met with his associates here.  That night, Todd, Brenda and I went to the Cheonggyecheon River Lantern Festival in downtown Seoul.  They’ve completely renovated that area and created a beautiful river walk that goes on and on.  And for this festival the entire river was filled with beautifully illuminated lanterns.  We were FREEZING but definitely enjoyed our stroll and the lanterns.

Brenda and I got to Namdaemun Market, Namsan Tower and Itaewon on Thursday for some additional sightseeing.  Other than that, we really just enjoyed relaxing around Casa Gordon and walking around Yeouido with Sam following his Mimi and Papa everywhere.

Friday morning we headed to Incheon Airport nice and early (5:30 am) for our 9:00 flight to Beijing.  After arriving at the airport and heading up to the desk to check in, we were met with some seriously sad news.  Todd’s Chinese visa, which we had understood to be a multiple use visa, was in fact only a single use visa and was cancelled after his business trip to China last month.  While they can typically issue same day visas at the airport, because of the Asian games and the G20 summit they weren’t able to that day.  So with heads hung low Ed, Brenda, Sam and I headed on to our flight and said goodbye to Todd, with the assumption that he would be joining us later that day or the next morning.

After several trips to the Chinese embassy, back to the airport, and to sketchy little ladies representing travel agencies, the best Todd could do was a visa issued by 10:00 am Monday morning.  The even bigger bummer about this was the fact that he would not only be alone in our apartment in Seoul for three days, but that he would miss Beijing and the Great Wall tour we had set up.

Todd’s parents were incredible with helping with Sam, letting me get in showers and some quiet time and walking up and down countless flights of stairs with Sam (he is OBSESSED with stairs right now).  It was heartbreaking for all of us but we soldiered on.  We saw the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, then on Sunday headed out on our Great Wall tour.

The Great Wall is an hour and a half drive from downtown Beijing.  As you’re flung around corner after corner playing dodgem with pedestrians and bicyclists, you suddenly round a bend and there it is stretching out in front of you.  What a formidable structure!  It’s hard to believe that it was built thousands of years ago.  The Chinese call it The Longest Cemetery, because as workers died during the construction of the bridge their bodies were enclosed and buried inside.  The bridge is about 5,000 km in length and each section is composed of whatever building materials were proximate to its location.  So the section we were on was all stone and brick but there are sections of wood and various materials from local quarries.

After the gondola ride up, Sam enjoyed running/climbing/OWNING the wall for some time.  As it was freezing (and we were all exhausted from acting as last minute barriers between Sam and the ground) we didn’t spend long up top, but enough time to relish the fact that we were at one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and also really, REALLY miss Todd.  After the Wall we headed to a cloisonne factory, where we watched the process of creating beautiful pottery native to Beijing.  Ed and Brenda purchased a bowl, then we had lunch at the restaurant there.  As a cap to this incredible day we then headed to Old Beijing and took rickshaws through the town.  We met a local woman who has opened her house up to participants of tours of the area and had tea in her home.  These homes are typically about two rooms with no private bathroom facilities.  What used to be single family homes are now home to as many as ten families in some cases.  The area is bursting at the seams and now also houses lots of bars and eateries.  It’s a quiet respite in the middle of a huge noisy city during the day, though.

Monday, Todd’s Dad hatched a seriously crazy plan.  We picked Todd up from the airport at 3:00, drove straight to the Great Wall, ran up the entire incline to the gondola (MAN was I convinced I was going into labor up there, we were hustling!), and got up to the Wall.  We had about 20 minutes as the sun set before the last gondola was going back down, and we enjoyed every minute of it.  It was incredible to be there with the whole family finally together.

We packed up Monday night and headed to Shanghai Tuesday for three days there.  It was great to see Ed’s office and meet his colleagues there, and we had an amazing dinner of Beijing Duck with them on Wednesday night.  Tuesday night we went out to dinner with Emma, and we managed to find things we would eat on the menu.  Not an easy task since there were about seventy pages, mostly filled with dishes of bullfrog and other tasty delights.  Wednesday night we went out with the Mayne-McKenney folks for a traditional Beijing Duck dinner, which was incredible and had more courses than we could possibly count.  After dinner, Emma and Boyd watched Sam while Ed, Brenda, Todd and I went out to the Peace Hotel for an evening show.  They host a nightly jazz band performance by some old Chinese dudes.  Some of them were so old we were wondering if they were using their last breaths to play their instruments.  Too funny.  After the show, we headed out to the Bund (river walk), then walked all the way down Nanjing Road, or walking street, back to the hotel.  Nanjing Road is a vehicle-free walking area encircled by neon lights and beautiful architecture.

Thursday I went out shopping with Emma and Wendy again.  We visited “Cheap Road” and purchased some fake Uggs for $30.  What a trip that was.  After turning down what seemed to be hundreds of Chinese propositioning us with little laminated cards with knockoff handbags on them, we decided to take one woman up on it and followed her to “the goods.”  We went into a large market and into the basement, to a small store with some non-name-brand bags lining mirror-covered walls.  After exchanging some Chinese the storekeeper pushed on one of the walls and the shelved pushed back to reveal an opening to a small closet-type room.  I was hustled in along with the shop owner and found myself in maybe a 3’ x 8’ room with walls covered in knockoff bags.  Emma and Wendy popped their heads in occasionally and helped me negotiate with the woman.  What started as a 950 rmb bag (about $150) became a 200 rmb bag after we walked out of the store and she chased after us.  I wish I could’ve taken pictures!  It was awesome.  After our shopping successes, we headed back to the hotel, picked up Todd and Sam and watched Todd MacGyver all of this stuff into our bags, and left for the airport to come home.

Overall, we absolutely loved China.  I could definitely live there - especially in Shanghai - if it weren’t for a few issues I have with them.  First, while in Korea you can assume that you might get run over while crossing the street if you aren’t careful, in China you can be positive that they will run you over.  Whether you have a green walking arrow, a red walking arrow, or my favorite, the green bicycle.  The streets are filled with rickshaws, bicycles, cars, motorcycles and electric scooters (silent engines) and they are all aiming at you.  I don’t know if they think they get twenty points for almost killing you or what but it is the scariest place I’ve ever been.  Second, I’m pretty sure that every single person in Shanghai smokes.  I couldn’t find a single place where I could take a breath without choking on cigarette smoke.  Businesses, hotels, taxis, every place is smoking.  So that one was a little rough as well.

We came home appreciative of our life in Korea, but with a huge respect for the cultural differences between these two Asian nations.  What a wonderful trip - I’m already working on planning a girls’ night trip to Shanghai with Lindsay for some shopping and uninterrupted sleep!!

Here are the links to the pictures:

Cheonggyecheon River & the DMZ:

http://picasaweb.google.com/toddandjengordon/CheonggyecheonLanternFestivalDMZ1110?authkey=Gv1sRgCO2n9dL__-S47QE&feat=directlink

China:

http://picasaweb.google.com/toddandjengordon/China1110?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_8-5n6n8Dg8gE&feat=directlink