Here's the pics from our busy weekend. The kids were in the parade on base on Saturday, and I got some other good shots as well. Spencer and Amanda marched with their soccer teams and Tabitha and I watched from the side and collected a LOT of candy.
Then we got in the car and made really good time getting down to Osan AB to see the airshow. We got there and a few hours later, they were kicking everyone out. There was an A-10 and F-16 demo. But the best part was the kids being able to get in the F-4 Phantom. And the ROKs that were supposed to close up their aircraft and throw us out, allowed us to get inside and look around. We went to Chili's for dinner and then it took 2 1/2 hours to drive 35 miles in bumper to bumper traffic all the way to Seoul. We should have taken the train. Next time we'll remember to go right from the parade to the train and spend more time at the Cultural Festival. I wonder if they'd like to see American Culture, but then again- they turn on the TV and they can't get away from it. Not that it's really true, because I'm not like any TV characters- and I don't plan on it, either. No wonder they think we're freaks.
Sunday we had General Conference and stayed home to listen to it on the computer, because the tower computer blew a power supply ($50 at the repair shop) we had the laptop so we just had audio. I detect a definite "strength in adversity" theme there. That's scary. And the won was at 1400 to the dollar. But that's over with, so I should have moved faster and gotten my money changed over. I could have made $500 on the exchange. But they closed the bank and threw us out when I went to change the money over. But it's good their economy is on the mend.
Monday was Columbus Day, and after we got everything settled at the apartment, we hopped the subway to Seoul Grand Park to look at the Zoo. They have an amusement park as well, but we didn't get there until 1 in the afternoon, so we just wanted to look at the Zoo and enjoy our time. On the way there, they had stands selling ice cream, rice cakes (these had red bean paste in them YUCK) and little shells were you suck out the crabs and eat them. I tried one of them. They also had little silk worms boiling. Silk wouldn't cost so much if they didn't kill the silkworms and eat them! I didn't eat that. But they also had little cakes with pudding inside, called Manjoo. Those were yummy. Those are my favorite. Since I didn't like the rice cakes, I saw a group of teenaged boys walking by, and I gave the rice cakes to them to eat. In the US, you'd get some rude remark, but these guys actually took them and ate them, and then came back with ice cream cones to give us. We didn't expect the ice cream cones, and I wish I had a way to tell them it wasn't necessary. But they feel so obligated to give a gift if you give them one. You just can't argue with 5,000 years of tradition and culture. And if you don't speak Korean, you can't even try.
Today Julie and I took Violet to Incheon to look around for dishes. They don't really open until noon and it takes too long to get out there to even think about staying past 1PM to wait for everything to open. So we had lunch at one of the Chinese restaurants out there in Chinatown. Incheon is the port where MacArthur made his famous landing, but I couldn't find his statue. I looked around for the old Korean War vets that stand a constant vigil over him. He was apparently very popular here. Then again, so is the CSI series. All 3 of them. You can watch CSI (the original), CSI: NY, and CSI: Miami every night. Enjoy the pics.
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