out on the town

Today was the first day i really went out exploring since we have all had terrible colds and our shipment from home arrived, keeping me very busy inside. Rick was off so we grabbed the stroller, the baby bjorn and the kids and went walking in okpo. it was a nice day, about 80 degrees with a light breeze. we found some interesting little areas where it is almost like an outdoor market area with the selling of mostly fish and vegetables. everyone sits on the ground and has little stands with their meat and fish sitting out on top of some ice. there were a couple of stands that had bowls filled with chicken legs and thighs with alittle ice underneath. i kept thinking" that cant be good" but hey, i dont know. we went to lunch at a nice little restaurant called kim's garden. it had an outside area to sit and great landscaping. food was really good and afterwards i needed to take addison to the bathroom to change her. something i've noticed alot about the bathrooms is they are very often unisex with a urinal and two stalls, one marked for men and one for women. ethan thinks its great because he gets to use the urinal all the time. unfortunately, they dont always have baby changing areas in these bathrooms. addison was smelling pretty bad so i knew i could not wait. i decided to go inside the restaurant and see if maybe there was another bathroom in there. one of the waitresses spoke some english so she understood what i was looking for when i asked. the inside of the restaurant was nice, people ate there and that is where you pay. to accommodate me with the baby, the waitress simply cleared off the top of one of the tables you eat at, handed me a towel, and i changed the stinky diaper on the table in the middle of the restaurant while people just looked on and smiled.
no one seemed to have any problem with this whatsoever, so hey, neither did i.

That night, rick's friend al came in from houston on business and we all went out to dinner where i had my first taste of korean bbq. we went to a restaurant very like mongolian bbq at home where you choose your food and its all you can eat but they do not cook it for you, you have a little cooking area at your table and you do it yourself. this was a great way to try alot of different options. i was surprised at how eager ethan was and he did great trying all the different food. at one point i watched him eat fried squid with no problem. towards the end he started to reject everything after encountering few things he deemed "too spicy". i tried a pretty big variety of dishes and have to say i would rate it a 6.5 out of 10. i didnt dislike it, i just didnt find anything i really liked. neither ethan or i enjoyed the desserts which were these little balls of goo like substance rolled in chocolate, roasted almonds or sugar. al said he had had these before and you eat them like donuts. apparently they have ground bean curd in them. the texture just tasted all wrong, cant really explain it.

ethan starts school on monday and on thursday of this week we went for a school tour and to meet his teacher Linda. we went during the time that school was letting out so i could see the other moms and the kids and get an idea of the routine. we walked there so i could get a feel for what that would be like. i had addison in the small stroller and i brought the baby bjorn carrier. the road to ethan's school from our apt is a main traffic area with 2 lanes going in both directions. it is very loud with a speed limit of i think about 45 miles per hour which no really drives. driving here is very interesting and there are many accidents. we almost got hit by cars pulling in and out of stores on the way there 3 times. i was pretty frazzled by the time we got there.

the other mom's i saw were of various nationalities speaking a variety of languages most of them not english. most of the women were blonde, blue eyed scandanavian looking women. no one seemed overly friendly but not unfriendly either. everyone was just doing there own thing. there is a playground at the drop off/pick up area so ethan played and i just observed for a while. i was still having alot of problems with my cold so i was doing my best to look enthused. i liked ethan's teacher and she gave us a tour of the school. ethan was not on his best behaviour and she did not seem to notice at all. she has taught at various areas around the world and owned her own preschool in florida. she is american. she was very excited that i wanted to come in and volunteer and said there was no problem bringing addison. she told me that no other mothers had expressed an interest and she liked to have the involvement. she said the class is truly international with children from a variety of countries including germany, australia, and england just to name a few. only 3 children in the class speak english fluently (with ethan being one of them). there are 11 students total. they are the panda class which is in the british system of education a foundation 2 class. mrs linda said that it is equivalent to kindergarten in the united states. ethan will go daily from 830-245 and have a pretty big variety of classes including math, music, pe and yes, korean language. should be a good experience.
talking to the teacher about my experience walking to school, she was pretty adamant that i drive ethan to school if at all possible due to traffic on the main road and the amt of accidents. after the walk there, and the walk home, i agreed. most areas we have been have been fine for walking, shopping areas where the traffic and speed limits are slow but this walk, unfortunately is not one of them. alot of mom's live in an area where there are small houses called the row houses. these seem to be the optimal place to live as far as walking for school. there are no main roads to cross from these houses so it is equivalent to walking thru a neighborhood except it is a bit steeper with hills. i have not met anyone yet that lives in the row houses to talk to about the pros and cons of the two living places. it should be interesting when i do.
tomorrow we are having breakfast with the site manager of ricks project. they live in the row houses and although i dont think they have small children, they might be able to give me some information about the area.