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We will have lots of other pictures from our adventures today but we thought we would put a few of our bus trip into Gyeongju (where we ended up renting bikes to get all around town). One of the bus stops had a lake with lotus flowers in bloom. It’s the big summer lotus flower festival here since this is their peak season.

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Yesterday was our busiest day yet.  We started out by ordering our own breakfast at Tae Geuk Dang bakery down the hill from the hotel.  We were completely clueless as to what to order, but Angie is always good about asking. She looked up the word for “breakfast” (achim) and “what do you recommend” (mwo chucheonhae jusillaeyo) in our handy dandy lonely planet guide, and asked a very nice lady who suggested a big-sized roll that they could cut into quarters.  It looked like it was custard-filled but otherwise was the size of a half-loaf of bread. When they served it, it turned out to be filled by a cross between egg salad and cole slaw, with a Korean twist of course. Surprise!  Angie and I ate the whole thing, and frankie even ate a couple of bite.  But, both girls really had ice cream sandwiches instead.

We took the subway down to Gyeongbokgung Palace, seat of power in Korea during the Josean dynasty from the 1500’s to 1910.  The palace included a history museum, a changing of the guard reenactment, and lots of old stuff in general.

This is the stupa from the high-monk Jigwang-guska, a masterpiece of ancient Korean stone stupas, believed to have been built around 1085, making it the oldest thing we saw today. It was built during the Goryea dynasty, the one that came before the Joseans.  The Goryea palace is about a kilometer away and we’ll visit it later this week.

Somehow, Bee and Frankie’s Korean outfit wound up in a museum.  Who knew?

This guard was clearly intimidated by Bee and Frankie.

After the palace we met Angie’s friend Miyun and went to a very nice noodle restaurant.  We finished the day in a place that was very familiar to us…

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Running through the market area is the Cheonggyecheon ( 청계천). the stream runs from downtown Seoul into the eastern neighborhoods, and until recent urban renewal work in 2005 was covered with roadway. Along the stone wall that runs along the river are five artists’ works dealing with the subject of nature and environment. Lots of local children play in the stream. there is stone bridge across that we walked along, and also we we let the girls take their shoes off and dip their feet in the water to cool down.

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Angie has her last talk today, so the girls and I spent some time at the Seoul Science Park (map)

This was the leaning room. Reminded me of some places my family visited when I was a kid.

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Angie’s already there, and Bee, Frankie and I started our journey to Seoul today.
First there was the bus

Then we got bagels at the airport. The cinnamon bagel poppers were a big hit!

Here we are on the plane, I told the girls they were angels the whole way…

Not too much Korea just yet, but FYI, Swallows beat the Tigers today in ipad baseball FYI. Yeah, it was a 8-1 walk in the park for the Swallows, whose team captain, Barbara, really needs to find some better competition.

In celebration, barbara wrote the Swallows theme song. Here it is:

Swallows are going to win
They tickle everyone
They eat mosquitoes
Swallows win! Swallows win!

Some actual Korea pictures tomorrow…

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Looks like Frankie won the vote! Run Frankie Run!

OK, here are a few pics from our garden. Its sort of pathetic looking this year. Its a combo of Cho Cho digging up alot of the greens, and me experimenting with new things to see what will grow and what wont. The Swiss Chard did really well this year, but we ate it all. The kale. Not so good. Not sure why. We love kale, too. Oh well. the tomatoes looks good and the cucumber looks good too. The broccoli grew but the heads so small and then they turn to flower. Any idea on how to make those things grow a bit bigger? The eggplant wilted a bit. the onions, lettuce, basil and pumpkin were either eaten by visitors or dug up by cho cho. We are enjoying the cucumbers now. I think you can grow those in your sleep so i wont take any credit for that!

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Can you guess which picture goes with which vote?

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Pictures to follow!

>Bee and Frankie are wrapping up Level 1 swimming this week. They both can swim now! Its more like an underwater doggy paddle, but they can go a few meters, and have much more confidence in the water. Actually you have to keep your eye on Frankie because she will just paddle out to the deep end before she realizes what she has done! Their swimming teacher gave the kids a choice of going down the slide into the deep end without life jackets and both girls ran straight up to the slide. Here they are sliding down. Bee swims back to the side by herself with her teacher next to her. Frankie gets a little help. Its on to level 2!

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the girls were playing with chalk in the driveway, and i saw that this picture. it looks like a segment in the periodic table of the elements, but it also spelled “I hope”. Anyhow, I thought that was kind of cool. When I asked them about it Bee said it said it was part of her hopscotch maze and it really said “I hop.” Still i like it.