Wandering Browns

Landon says airplane "DANE!" On Saturday, we decided to take the train over to Itaewon, which is the neighborhood next to the U.S. base in the middle of Seoul. The only advice we had heard was just to go there, so we emerged from the subway with few expectations of what we would see. It ended up being a more Americanized part of town with lots of restaurants and bars- things that would appeal to soldiers. There were all different kinds of restaurants which was nice to see! Austin got some kebap- a Turkish meat wrap where the meat is mystery meat that has been roasted on a spit, and I was set on finding Mexican food. If I was going to find it anywhere in Korea, I knew it would have to be here! After wandering up and down the main street, we decided to circle around and go down some side streets. While some of the establishments we found were on the shady side, we also found a Mexican restaurant! Hooray! I had beef and shrimp tacos and they were delicious, especially wit...

Today, we took a little drive over to the Seoul Korea temple to show Landon the temple. His favorite Primary song is "I Love to See the Temple" and he asks me to sing it pretty much every night as he's going to bed. Turns out a bunch of missionaries were there attending sessions and collecting mail. It was fun to talk to people in English and we got the number of the missionaries in our area! Landon is pointing to Angel Moroni Landon loved the temple. He explored all around it and recognized angel Moroni. When we told him we were going, he was so excited and yelling "TEMPLE!" in the car. We had a few problems navigating there and so we were nervous when he was so excited that we weren't going to find it! We did, though, and had a great time! Seoul temple looks like Chicago!

 Landon has changed so much since we came out here to Korea. He has morphed into a full-blown toddler! The latest word from Austin's work is that our release date is moving closer to August due to some delays at the refinery. At any rate, here are some things Landon is doing lately: Talking in small sentences/long phrases. He says things like "I swing!" and "baseball bat". It seems he learns new words every day, and really practicing his new words. When he says "beach" it sounds a lot like the "B" word, and he yells it whenever he sees sand or pictures of water, so good thing we are in Korea and they can't understand what he's saying! Counting to 1, and sometimes 2. He is also learning the power of negotiation in that he will come up to me with a candy or treat that he found in the snacks and say, "Bun Candy! Bun Candy!" That means "one candy".  Learning colors! He thinks everything is pink right now,...

In front of the main gate of the palace, there is this big median in the road with these big sculptures Today, being ill-informed about the weather we decided to go to the main palace in the middle of Seoul. Unfortunately, we did not know that it would be thunderstorming and pouring rain most of the day, so it was a very wet adventure. When we emerged from the subway, it was not raining and we were able to take our time approaching the palace gates and take some pictures. The palace in the misty morning Main gate from across the street Dragon protector The guards looked like wax- mostly because they had fake facial hair!  As soon as we bought our tickets, however, it started raining. Not pouring, but enough to get wet. We decided to head to a museum to stay dry since we forgot our umbrella. We went to the National Korean Folk Museum, which ended up being much cooler than I thought it was going to be. It detailed the history of Korea as f...

The place we stayed in Sokcho reminded me of guesthouses that we stayed in while traveling in Italy- homey and simple. I wanted to stay in a place that felt more like a home than a hotel, and I think we accomplished that. The bed was a little hard for Austin's taste, but I actually liked it better than our hard bed in the hotel. Landon had his own sleeping mat and blanket and pillow and did pretty well sleeping there through the night. One night he got cold and ended up in bed with us, but other than that he was great! Our room There were 3 huge paintings decorating the upstairs walls We ordered a smoothie the last morning and Onam brought Landon in and sat him down in her little shop out front and gave him cereal to munch on while she made the smoothie.  For breakfast, we got to make our own in a self-service kitchen! Austin cooked up eggs while I made toast and hot dogs for Landon and I and we feasted on what we had made. Austin reflected that it was the first t...

Despite the gloomy skies we decided to attempt some beach-going while we were near the coast in Sokcho. I had researched beaches with waves, and Naksan showed up as the closest beach to Seoul with waves. We hopped on a bus and remained vigilant of the street signs (some of them are in English and Korean) so we could figure out when to get off (because all the bus announcements are only in Korean). Austin won the game and saw the sign for the Naksan temple so we hopped off the bus and headed for the beach. It was another misty morning with intermittent rainfall, but we decided to at least see the beach before deciding on the rest of our plans. Landon enjoyed walking up and down stairs and ramps near the beach front board walk as we waited out a few little rain storms. We waited for the convenience stores to open (5 7-11s just in Naksan that we counted!) so that I could buy Landon some sand toys. Somehow in our travels from Seoul we lost his sand bucket that he got from Ikea. At least i...