Basta ya...

Hello, today I was posting about this awesome restaurant we went the other day, but last minute I changed it to something else.  

Recently my Island has been going trough some really hard times... it's affecting everybody. Since I don't like negativity, I will not go into details on what's going on. Also, I believe as I am not there, I have no right to say.... after all, I only know what I read or see on the news. 

I live in Seoul, but my family & friends live in Puerto Rico. I'm here, but my heart is there. 

To offer my online support to PR and for all the people I love and care about, I want to take part on the "dress in white Friday, against violence". 

I don't mean to sound like a beauty queen with the world peace and all, but truth is... Que nos pasa Puerto Rico???... Everybody deserves to live a peaceful life. 

If you are from PR, I would like to suggest liking the Basta Ya PR page on Facebook. 

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” 

― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

xoxo

T. 

Korean 911

Todays "romanized" Korean word is going to be "friend"...

I've been thinking about my friends a lot lately. I miss them so much... I've loved the experience of living abroad, but I can imagine just how much easier it would be if I had at least one of them around. Thank Goodness for kakao-talk, Facebook, Instagram, Skype and Facetime.... they all bring me just a tiny bit closer to everybody back home.

Makes me think... 
At times I might have judged someone that was "online" all the time... Maybe, just mayyyybe, that someone might have been a tiny bit lonely. : /

A funny thing happened....

When I start doing my research it turns out that the way you would pronounce "friend" in Korean, is a "ugly" (slang) word in Spanish... Well at least in Puerto Rico. It's a tiny bit embarrassing to put it up, but oh well... it is what it is...

Friend 

Chingu 

or

Chin gu

I will not be saying what this means in PR... : P

xoxo

T. : )

Fathers

I meant to do a post on Fathers Day and I know it was a couple of weeks ago...I'm a tiny bit late... : (
That weekend we went to Shanghai and even though I had already written some posts, I couldn't really do anything... Internet in China is almost illegal... well not really, but with all the bans and the control the Government has, it made it very difficult to impossible for us to connect.
We had a great time there, even though we got hit with a serious case of the "mi-cheoss-oh's"... that made me go a little crazy myself... I will tell you more on this trip on a post soon.

So, for Fathers Day, my Mom had an activity at Church and I sent a message for my Stepdad... To think... emotional things come so easy to me when is written. I don't think I could say all these things up front, I'm actually pretty shy at showing my emotions. I'm sorry, I can not say I love you to everybody, just like that. I admire people that do. For some reason, even though I do love soooo many people, it just doesn't come so easy to me. I tell my little ones how much I love them every second I get a chance, hoping they don't come out like me... let's see how that goes... : )

The Fathers of my life... I love you guys....

Guito....

I am sooo grateful and happy that I grew up with a guy like this. He is one of the most humble guys you could ever meet, one of the nicest human beings. I am so glad that he is part of my family and I am so grateful for him having made my Mom so happy all these years. I love you Dude!


The Bro...

I have an amazing, caring and loving brother who is one of the best Dads I know. He has been a great influence in my life, and I am so proud of having him as a brother. He is one of the most giving and selfless guys I know, and love him sooo very much.

And who else... THE BEST Dad in the whole wide world, my love S.

What a blessing it has been having you in my life. I could not express with words the amount of love I have for you. You give so much and ask so little.... how did I become this lucky! I am a better person because of you and I thank God each day for allowing us to cross paths. Magic... Dreams do come true!

Even though is late.. I hope you all had a great Fathers Day... : )

xoxo
T.

Anseong Farmland : )

Good Friday to all! : )

As you may already know, we do not own a car in Korea. Besides the fact that they are really expensive, they are also unnecessary here, as Seoul has THE most efficient and easy to use transportation system I've ever used... and really clean! 

Whenever we want to go somewhere outside Seoul, we rent one. It's quite nice getting into a brand new car, each time! : ) 

This time we had no clue as where to go, we just started driving. Usually these types of "adventures" are the ones that turn out the best! And so it was... we had, yet another super fun day! 

I had remembered I saw on a website on things to do with kids in Seoul, something about a "Dutch Village". I thought it would be similar to the "English Village", so that's where we went!

Anseong Farmland is basically a very beautifully landscaped and really big petting zoo. It's built with a "Theme Park" feel, but it really worked as a relaxing escape from the hectic city. 

(What I could tell you is based on our experience only. You can see the official website here, but, it's only in Korean).

He looked like a tourist asking for directions. 

Marky was so exited to see horses, he couldn't wait to go in. 

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You can pet and feed the animals. The coolest part was, some of them where walking freely and I guess because they are used to having people around, they where really friendly. I found out too late, you can get horseback rides too... Marky would've looooved it! 

To our surprise, he was not afraid of any of the animals. As for Olivia, hummm... after getting startled by a Cow, wanted nothing to do with animals. : ]

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& he finally got a chance to pet a real horse! He was very cautious and gentle. His happiness level was through the roof!!! ♥

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Livy wanted nothing to do with Cows, but we found a beautiful field, filled with Poppy.... she loooooved it! 

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Well, she kinda' liked Mr. Moo too... : )

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This moment absolutely made our day! As soon as I put him on top of the cow & out of nowhere, he yelled; "YEEEEEEHAAAAA".... took his hat off and waved it in the air... SERIOUSLY hilarious!

The kid is a clown, just like his parents! 

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We picked up a pinwheel.... 

I think you where supposed to write a message or a wish (not sure... there was no English translations anywhere). 

I just wrote a very "Boricua" thing...

"We were here! Much ♥ from Puerto Rico"

The M.O.S.T crew... 

Markus, Olivia, Sean & Tania

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& you plant it into the ground...

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It really wasn't as easy as we thought. The ground was as hard as concrete. I gave it a couple of shots, then tried in another spot... nada... gave up. 

S. took over... nada... hahaha..

Tried yet another spot... Impossible, gave up too.... 

In the end we just took an empty stick out and replaced it with ours. : /

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& we went on the Tractor ride around the field. 

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& saw the most beautiful views...

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& the most green I've seen since I moved to Seoul. My camera had just died, so I had to take these with my phone. I wish I could have captured the tons and tons of butterflies everywhere!

There was also a "Dutch Village" (a village with buildings that resembled European style cottages). There was a German restaurant, a couple of shops and some fountains where kids were swimming as if it was a pool. (I absolutely forgot to take pictures of this) : P

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The friendly and well cared for animals, the fresh air, the beautiful views, the butterflies and my Markus' level of happiness, turned this day into another great adventure! 

 We all came back super relaxed and SUPER TIRED... straight to bed... at 7pm... all of us! ; )

xoxo

T.

Korean 911

Since (inexplicably) my little blog (intended for my family) is growing, I've been trying to organize it a little better. My goal is to be more consistent with my postings. I also changed the font so it would be easier to read. I just noticed while out, that depending on the device it's read, the font comes out different. My original one was a "hand writing" style that I really liked, but at times it came out as a really ugly cursive, "wedding invitation style". So I changed it to a simpler one.

Also, from now on, I will share with you some "romanized" Korean words a week. I've realized the easier way for me to learn at this point is by memorizing it. Maybe writing it down and talking about it with you guys, will help me remember it the moment I need to use it... not 10 minutes later... : (

For the time being, I couldn't think of a better one to start of with, but this;

"mi-cheoss-oh"

or 

"noh mi-cheoss-oh"


Which means;

"Are you crazy"

There are soooo many crazies here!!!

Trust me, I will be using it... more times than I would like! 

I don't know if people here realize what a great country this is. They have a good government, good economy, they live in a safe and a secure environment, beautiful land a great culture in general. So are many really, really, really good things going on.

Yet, people seem to be so, unhappy. 


When I left my Island, I also felt there where too many unhappy people, but a different kind. Over in PR I feel the unhappiness was more, sadness... I must say, the statuses on FB have gotten much less depressing... that's good. : ) 


Here, the unhappiness is more, "sourness"... Most Ppl are just plain sour... with a couple of exceptions, I do love a few... : )

At times it is very hard to understand the ways of people... I guess that's part of having a chance at experiencing it first hand. By living here, I have learned a lot about human behavior. I did not complete my Psychology degree because I hated it, but now I'm thinking I should... I might be very good at it! 

I only wish to grow up some more, learn and become a better, wiser and kinder person out of this experience...

In the meantime I'll be saying a whole lot of "micheoso's"... : )

xoxo
T.

I found it!

Hello ppls...
Once I wrote a post about this cute street we found around the Gyeongbok Palace.
You can see the post here. Well, the other day, we went apartment hunting around that area, just cause we love it so much, and our lease in our current apt. is due.

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Now I Finlay know the name! It's called Samcheong-dong, and it's a neighborhood of Jongno-gu.

There are tons of really cute shops and cafes.

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This area is so, so, so so so nice! It's filled with History.

There would be so many things to do around here. There are two palaces close by. Also, a preserved area of Traditional Korean style Houses (Hanok) is around.

Most of the traditional Markets like Dongdaemun, Myeongdong and Namdaemun are close by also. Even though this area is an "older" feel, I would love to live here, even if it is for a short period of time. 

We did not get lucky this day, as the apt. we saw was quite small for us. I do want to downsize, as I now feel comfortable enough in Seoul, and I know I will be ok.

I put this picture up on my Instagram, and someone actually told me it looked scary, that it reminded her of a Korean movie called "Old Boy"... 

Pass... : /

 I haven't seen the movie yet. But I will! 

When we first got here, I was a tiny bit scared to move into an apt. I would hate. What if I didn't like where I lived??? I was already terrified of not liking it in Korea. So I at least wanted to have a safe place, a home I would love. I now know Korea is about the safest place I'll ever live. I'm also used to all the smells and things that worried me in the beginning. If I don't have any visitors, and I don't really need something so big, or as modern as this one, we are gonna downsize and save some "dinero". : P

To rent an apartment, villa, or a house in Korea is a royal pain in the A$$... it's something all right!
First, real estate here is one of the most expensive in the world.... sooooo expensive! Also, the way it works here, is you have to make a year or two year lease, and pay up-front the whole year's rent as a deposit on top of the monthly payments...seriously ridiculous. Short term rentals is almost non-existent. You could find corporate housing in serviced apartments (like the one we stayed in when we first got here for two months), but they suck, at least the one we were in.

We stayed at The Human Starville in Cheongdam-dong, and first of all, it has a higher rating than it should. The apt. is tiiiiiny, we asked for a non-smokers, and it still smelled horrible. I found it super dirty (maybe I was just hormonal cause I was preggers with Olivia), but I truly hated it the month and a half we were there.
For some reason I also hated (blame my hormones again) the fact that every single day I would get "lady services" cards under my door... "lady services... you know what I'm saying"... I HATED THOSE CARDS WITH ALL MY HEART!!! (I think I may have posted about this on one of my firsts posts... oh well...)
Pretty funny to think now, but I remember I was soooo annoyed with this, that one day I decided to go on "card slipping watch".... If only I had caught whomever slipped those under my door... I would have yelled some goooood Spanish... again, "IF-YOU-KNOW-WHAT-I'M-SAYING". Hormones made me "bieeen malcriá"... lol..

So, back to the post...
We love where we currently live, but, truth is, it would be nice to experience living on the North part of Seoul for a bit too. On this part of Seoul, there is also a large community of English speaking people as the US Army base is stationed here. So we started looking around Itaewon.

From what I've read (sadly) Itaewon has a reputation being the ghetto, specially among Koreans. I'm not saying this because I know it specifically, it's just what I've read in different blogs. I do not like to judge, if I have not experienced it myself. But truth is, we went to this area the other day to look at another apt. there and it was not the nicest place I've been in the K's... I am still looking around this area though, as there are a lot of more English things to do around (I need an English School for Marky). Hopefully we will find something that meets our needs. Wish us luck!

xoxo,
T.

Novelera... : X

Hope you are all well!
I haven't posted, In a bit & I'll tell you why... I'm an official "K-Drama" addict! Before you start judging me, hear me out (well, read me out : )...

Before I became a Mom, I LOOOVED to read funny, romantic, women's fiction, well anything that carried a good love story. For a while, I wouldn't spend money in anything that wasn't a book. I would eat them up, 2 to 3 books a week. sigh...... those days of lazy couch reading........

As soon as I got preggers for the first time (before Marky), I got "What to Expect When You're Expecting".  I read half of it in a week, I wasn't even eight weeks preggers and I already knew about "Birthing Plans". If you would like to know my opinion, (and I must be the only one to believe this, but for me, at times ignorance is bliss), I wouldn't recommend this book to first timers, or at least don't get it as soon as you get the first (++). This book has some scary info! True, very informative, (I guess if you do want to know)... But I would recommend to just go with the flow. Attending birthing classes later on is better. All that got stuck in my head, were all the things that could go wrong! I was so scared of everything, I literally believed I was gonna loose it if I sneezed. Spotting, iron deficiency, preeclampsia, amniocentesis.... all too much to know, too soon. If you read my post here, you already know how that pregnancy went. : (  After this, I put the books on time out.

After I had my Markus, I started reading, "Becoming Baby Wise..." everything. That has been mostly it, ever since.

To satisfy my romance needs, I started watching romantic TV shows like, "Grey's Anatomy" etc... (well, just until it became ridiculous and unbearable to watch) It's been so long, since I've watched American shows that I forgot their names. I did like a whole lot of them, I saw about two a night... weekly! I also had my fair share of "guilty pleasures"... AKA..."Reality TV". On my behalf, I only really liked "Jersey Shore's first Season"... : ) But those "Housewives of Crazy/Mafia land" really got me hooked, specially the "New Jersey, ones". : / I still remember, that just days before we moved to Korea, the new season was gonna start, and I missed it. To think of all that craziness that I've missed... upsets me... :)

When we got here, I went trough some serious TV detox regimen. I cut it off completely. Not that they don't give American TV shows here, it's just that all the ones they show are the Murder/Detective/Police/CSI kinda shows. These are NOT my style... at all!

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So I had heard about K-Dramas and I had actually seen random episodes of one or two of them before, back in PR (they started playing them dubbed in Spanish in the local WIPR ). However, it was only when I moved here, when I became a Kimchidrama, Dramabeans, MySoju or any of these sites that would give me a free subtitled episode. I thought, "why not". I might even learn some Korean while watching. The good news is, I HAVE!!!!! The other day, while watching an Episode of one, I understood 100% of what went on in the first scene!!!! : ))))

To this day, I have watched countless K-Dramas, as I go by them as fast as I used to with books. They have everything a romantic would want, a good laugh, a sigh, a tear. But my favorite thing about them is that they carry very original and interesting stories! None of these canned, over dramatized, re-done for 20th time, Latin ones. Sorry to diss on my own... but it's true! Latin dramas, are all the same!

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I have my little K-Drama crew on my Facebook... (ohhh... you girls know who you are) lol... we are group of ladies that share titles if we see a good one. Some of them watch them dubbed in Spanish on YouTube, but if you are in the US or Canada, know English and wouldn't mind reading subtitles, I would recommend a site like Dramafever.com. Here you can make a profile and keep track of the episodes and past Dramas you already saw.

We've now (yes, "WE" as in S. and me) have been glued to our computer, watching 2 new ones that just started. I do not like it one bit that they're so new. They only give new episodes on weekends so we have to wait for them to be uploaded. This on top of having to wait a week for 2 more episodes... grrrrp...

So because an incredible amount of ppl ask me for recommendations, I will do my very best to keep you updated on my current "Drama life". So I've been thinking of starting a weekly Drama roundup here. Funners.... I will also introduce a "konglish" word a week. Learning my basic "konglish" has helped me get around "SIN ESPOSO", without knowing any Korean.... : )

Now let's hope I can keep up!!!

xoxo
T.

Blog issues...

I'm sure you already know, but before I started blogging, I new sheisse about any of this. With the exception of Facebook, which I've had since the very beginning thanks to my hubs, who hooked it up...

I couldn't even tell you how many "blogs for dummies" or "computer for dummies" I've read. I am still just that... a total dummy with it! :P

Recently, I've been having quite the hard time trying to figure things out by myself, auuugggghhh... I soooooo need some computer person to help me on this! But then I remember.... is just a hobby! So until I can afford to pay someone to help me, it'll just be me, myself and I... lol...... Ohhh, and the hubs taking me around, so I can take all these pictures! : )

So as you see, some pictures have been deleted somehow, and I've been trying to fix this. This has been over a year of pictures, and I take soooo many.... It's taking me for ever to find them again. The problem was the blog wouldn't let me upload any more pics, because I exceeded my storage capacity. Not understanding what was going on or what to do, I think I deleted them myself... Grrrpp....

The storage space they give for images is very small, and with all the ones I put up... well... The only thing I could do, was to purchase some additional storage space. Blogging is not for free anymore.... : P

Before I post anything else, I want to figure this picture mess out. We had some great times at another great traditional restaurant just outside Seoul. We also went to another "pretend town like village", this time it was a Dutch Village. There was a kiddie themed park there, called "Farmland", with a great petting zoo. We also headed out to the West coast for some beach action... Lots of nice posts ahead! Can't wait to share with you! : )


xoxo
T.