Bye, bye Seorae Maeul...

I'M BACK!... hehehe.... well... Let's just say, I'll be "part timing" here... I'm still super busy. I'll tell you more about it on another post... : )

For now I can say, we are all moved & getting used to the new hood...

We have been here for a week and a half now & I must admit, I miss my old hood...
Don't get me wrong, I really like it here, but, there's always things a melancholic, dramatic & hopelessly romantic person like myself will miss about things left behind...

I never posted anything of where I was living at the time, just because I thought it was weird... Truth is, my life is all out there & I don't know who reads these posts... But now that I moved, I will tell you all about it. : )

We were, until recently, living in Seorae Maeul, Bangbae-dong, Seocho-gu. (easy-peasy huuu...lol) You don't want to know how long it took me to memorize all this and get the accent and pronunciation to be understandable!!!
The first couple of weeks (if not months) I didn't even know how to tell the cab drivers to take me home. I only said "Seorae Maeul". Yes, they would take me to the Village, but, how do I explain to him where my house was...
I did not know "up, down, straight ahead, down the hill, left or right". I know you will think; "why not have a phrase book with you"... I did! In theory, it should have helped, but truth is, it did not, at least me.
If you don't know how to say words the right way, they won't understand. I also had another situation... The phase book I have tells me how say the words in English, so it would be like (If you are from PR you will know) "Hablando Inglés, leyendo en Español", But this would be, Speaking Korean, Reading in English...
In my head, I read everything in Spanish. My mind & myself are complicated like this... I think in English, I read in Spanish, I write in English, I speak Spanglish, I live in Konglish... you might have noticed. ; )

Some cab drivers would be like; "huuuu... sorry-so sorry".. But most... would be like... AISHHHHHH... aahhhghh... Aigoooo... and yelled what for sure sounded like cursing. I was wasting my time flipping through the book in a hurry (while my 3 year old son's demanding to know what's going on in the background). I'm pregnant, about to throw up on the guy's face, (cabs smell, pre-tty bad) sweating, anxious, about the desperate driver and my loud son... at this point, I'll never find the right thing to say. Even when I did, he did not understand me. I dropped the phrase book first week!

Sometimes S. would rescue me, but at times he was busy and could not pick up my calls. I also wanted to try and figure it out by myself. The only thing I could do is get as close enough as I could and tell them; here is fine... From there I had to walk... Up hill.... Preggers... In the Summer... with like 40 extra pounds... and a boy in a stroller.... & groceries... I will tell you something... I'll start with a picture of THE one thing I won't miss... those ***** Hills....

Pregnant expat in Korea, having a baby in Seoul, expat life, Boricuas en Seúl, boricuas en Corea de Sur

Once I figured it out, it was all good from there.... 

well...... that until I had to cross the street. 

If they left me in the wrong side, I ran the risk of getting run over. Koreans are NOT polite drivers. At times I've even already been in the middle of the road crossing, with the stroller & a huuuge belly and they would still go around me (almost hitting me) to keep going... even if they had to go over the sidewalk, to no let me go by. To this date, I don't even know how many cars I've kicked and halmony's I've cursed, in some proper Spanish... They are reckless and if YOU don't back up, you WILL get run over!  

*This is not a Seorae thing, this is in all of Seoul... bad drivers, all over... : /

Now the cute stuff... : )

I will miss the amount of playgrounds I had around me. I had 5 playgrounds near by. All super clean and nice. Some had better things than others, but they were all great & the kids always had a good time! 

Seorae Maeul is also known as "The French Village". Most of the French expat community live here. There's also a French School and a bakery, with an actual French Baker. I will miss those baguettes! 

There's also a really, really nice park at the top of the hill, and right next to our house, called The Montmartre Park. They did a lot of public events and concerts for foreigners.

We could also go hiking, and I went for a couple of runs on the mountain trails. It was nice having it right there... : )

I will miss the fact that I JUST found there a hairstylist that I liked & speaks English. She left my hair beauuuuutiful!!!... ; ) I forgot to take a pic. of the actual hair stylist, but next time I go, I'll get it... : )

& just walking around the pretty hood & not getting a whiff of the sweet sewer smells... uhuuummmm.... Fancy hood = clean hood.... 

& the memories we collected while living there... : )

& the bugs we didn't... : P

& the family we became...

Add caption

Seorae Maeul...

I'll tell you all about the new area in a future post, perhaps when we leave it behind too... 

Now seeing these moving pictures, gives me a nostalgic feeling, as if our adventures in "Kimchiland" are close to end... 

*I'm telling you, "drama" should've been my middle name... hahaha...

Let's see what happens next... : ) 

xoxo

T. 

It's Summer time!

The Summer is here and it is HOT! Similar to PR hot (in it's hottest day), but over there you get the nice ocean breeze... none of that here!!! HOT my ppls... 

When you peak your head out the door it's the same feeling as when you're baking something and you open the oven door to check... Woshhh... a heat wave right on your face! It must be 100% humidity or something... you spend the whole day soaked! Hot & sticky = stinky : P 

While living here I've realized 3 things when it comes to seasons and weather;

1. I love having seasons
2. I am absolutely a Winter person
3. I don't like being hot... at all!

Ohhhhh (sigh).... How I miss having the ocean 10 minutes away! 

I guess taking 5 showers a day will have to do for now...The beauty of city living! : P

So, last month S. had a day off from work and he prepared a little surprise adventure for us. He rented a car and took us for a drive to the West side of Korea, outside Seoul. We went there maybe hoping to go and eat some seafood by the ocean. We had just seen this episode of a Drama where the guy took the girl to a sashimi restaurant right on the water... it looked sooo beautiful in that scene!

Well... we didn't find that place (apparently it's on the East side, where beaches are nicer). We still had a great day... if I don't take into account the 3 hours we spent driving there... with 2 little ones... locked up in the car... you know what I mean!!! ; )

This beach was called Muchangpo in Boryeong-si, Chungcheongnam-do.

The drive itself was beautiful. I got to see some pretty scenes, cool bridges and really beautiful landscapes and rice farms, not the flat ones I've seen so far, but ones in mountains. They looked like stairs almost... really pretty! As much as I tried getting an image of this, from the car it was impossible. Also, it was a very gloomy/misty day... not the best visibility. We didn't stop because the kids were sleeping at that point, and we have one car rule;

If kids are asleep

• NO STOPPING

& we finally got there...

Supposedly, something really cool happens during the tides of the Summer season, similar to when Moses parted the Red Sea, the ocean opens up and a path emerges from it. You could walk through it for a couple of hours a day. They say you can come across snails and octopuses stranded on this path.

We did not get to see this. : (

& Marky was sooo exited...

& Olivia was happy to...

She looooves water! Came out a fishy, like her Daddy. ♥

Little girl playing... 

& we went shell hunting...

& I put her on the bare sand for the first time... ever...

Then Da-da picked her up... : )

& Marky tried to build a sand castle...

While the girls wondered around...

& found some interesting things...

Like some tiny villas. They must be vacation rentals. I peaked inside and it was empty. It's basically just so you could sleep indoors... most Koreans, as you may know, sleep on the floor. They each had a stack of chairs outside and a table with the BBQ setup in the middle. 

& instead of beach chairs, there are beach tables. Pretty smart if you ask me... your food won't get sand on it. : )

& there were clams waiting to be eaten...

& fishies too... 

& we rented a bicycle...

& we went for a ride...

Since it was pretty chilly that day and the water was cold, no one went in the water. We also did not eat there, cause there wasn't really anything for Marky or me to eat. The restaurants there were either sashimi, (which I'm not there yet) or clam and oyster based soups (which I happen to be allergic to shellfish)...  How "shellfish" of me... poor S. he refused to eat by himself. 

So we hit the road once more... 

& we stopped at a rest stop and the food there was pretty decent. No McD' ppls... We had dok ramen, kimbap & miso soup with a side of pickled radish, cabbage salad & kimchi. 

And after, a whole other 3 hours drive back home... 

Yes... I think 5 showers a day will have to do for the Summer...

xoxo

T. : )

The Island of Sodor

This past weekend we took Markus to a Thomas & Friends Exhibition held at the AT Center in Yangyae-Dong. I found out about it trough the Korea for Kids page I liked in Facebook.

It's like a theme park, very small, but tons of fun for Tiny Thomas lovers. A bit  pricey, considering we had to come out with yet another missing character of the collection that's taking over our house. This time it was "Stanley" the one that got to come home with us. Funny how he introduces them to the one he has home...

"Here Stanley, this is your new home! Hello Thomas. Hello Stanley. Hello Everybody, welcome to The Island of Sodor ...."

Too cute how he plays.

Here some pictures...

Hurry, hurry....oh... the excitement!

The slides

He didn't ride the train... Adults can't go in it and he refused to go alone : ( 

Marky was totally freaked out by him, but not Haejoon <3

There is also a cookie making & coloring station... pretty cute ; )

Now back to the Mainland....

The info I found online in English said it was w16,000/w12,000, but we paid w40,000 for 2 adults and 1 kid, so I think it was more like w16,000/w8,000. To that the cost of an overpriced train, our Stanley was W18,000.  

The exhibition is only going to be there until February 12. English info. & how to get there Here. 

 Till next,

 xoxo

Fail!

Today I was set on finally going to Dongdaemun... failed....
Feels like I'll never make it there!
I dropped Markus off at his School and set off to my adventure. I walked to the nearest subway station with the gigantic stroller "grrrr" should've taken the BabyBjorn. After walking through the biggest maze of walking down to the underground station.... stairs.... why, why so many!!! Half way up some nice haraboji helped me. I don't always get help so I was bowing like a good Korean would, Komapsumnida, komapsumnidaaaa...
When I was preggers with Olivia, at times I would be with Marky on one hand, the Mclaren stroller in another, the gigantic belly & groceries on whatever part of my arm I had left,  trying to go down to what seemed to me like the largest staircase ever, trying to get to the subway. You wouldn't believe, not one single person would offer to help. After the 1/2 hour that took me to get down, I stand in front of where you are supposed to, waiting for the train (after I missed like 4 that came by while I was trying to go down) People start cutting me off and sneaking in front of me... seriously!

In that sign pointing right at her must say; This B... just cut you off

In that sign pointing at her, must say; "This B.... just cut you off

                          Whatever lady, I'll let it slide...
              Meanwhile, why not enjoy the nice ads while I wait.

Sweeeeeet!

As soon as the door opens, nobody waits for the people inside to come out, everybody just fights it off, whomever gets in first gets the seats, no matter if you are preggers or not. There are signs that say this seat is for the preggers, this one for old people, etc... I mean, they even tell you how to sit & how you should hold your bag.

How to Seat...

None of that is gonna work if there are a gazillion people inside... ojo a ojo!


Another day I tried to take it during rush hour.... OMG..... The "Push-Men" exist!!! There are so many people during rush hour, that there are guys just pushing people in, so everybody fits. That's their job! Yes, they push pregnant ladies too... I'll just think he didn't really see my big pipa...

The same thing happens with elevators. There are electric stairs almost everywhere, but, for some reason,  they refuse to use them. They much rather stuff themselves in the elevator. It's not even "elbow rubbing" full, it's more like, "I can smell your breath" full. And if they can, they will push you in a little more. That, my friends, is not the worst. How would you feel inside an elevator that fits 10 at most, but it has 20 people inside, and suddenly.... Yes... it happened.... someone let one loose!!!  fooooooooo..... NOTHING worst than a kimchi fart... trust me!

Don't get upset my K.ppls.... this is it with the worst. There are far more the things that I like about Korea than the ones I don't & the smelly oopsies... ; ) 


After these last experiences in the subway with the belly & Marky, I stopped taking it. The rest of the pregnancy I took cabs & now, I mostly walk.

So today trying to outsmart my iPhone app Jihachul (awesome app) I took a different route than the one the app told me, thinking; what's wrong with this app??... my way is way faster... NOT!... The way the app told me to take, I had to make 2 train changes...the way I chose, I had to make only one. Obviously, If I'm gonna choose, I'm gonna go for the one that has the least changes, since I'm with the stroller and all. I was trying to switch from line 9 to line 1, but to make the switch you had to exit the station, walk a little outside and then take the line 1.

When I went outside I was at the Fish Market, being unsure of which direction to go, I followed my instincts and I did find the line 1!...but guess what... Stairs!!! If it only was the stairs this time, but my lovely stroller's back wheels are to wide and it wont fit trough the ticket booth... Oh the stairs, the stroller, the cold, the STARES... you know, with me being all glow in the dark.  Forget it... Dongdaemun will be another day.

So back I go to the crazy Bus Terminal Station & have lunch in what has become my regular cafeteria, Yummmy, yummy bulgogi would make any day, a great day! 

I ❤ this place!

I had a Bulgogi set...

After my delicious lunch, I walk back to pick up Marky who was in the greatest mood TG, and it started snowing! yaeyyy..... I <3 random snowflakes, so pretty! Not such a bad day after all! 

Dongdaemun... I WILL find you next time! : )

xoxo,

T.