Good TImes!

What a week! Last Friday night Neal and Neo (or Edan or whatever) took us out to eat at another kind of traditional Korean restaurant. They put a really hot charcoal fire right in the middle of your table and you cook your own beef right there on the grill. Then you wrap your meat in lettuce and put whatever you want on it from the 100,000 side dishes available. It's very good although some of the side dishes are truly terrifying. Eating at a lot of Korean restaurants is really different than eating in the states. I know, I know, you're thinking "Duh! Obviously..." but a lot of restaurants here specialize in one special thing so If you're there, they assume that you want their special dish and they just start serving it. So there's no menu/ordering or anything like that. There are restaurants that specialize in hangover soup or even Dog soup. Trying to avoid that last one...

More Korean parking pictures 'cuz I promised...

Here is a shot in the grocery store. I AM successfully preparing meals here, but going to the grocery continues to be exhausting and kind of just makes me want to curl up in one of the aisles and rock for a few minutes. There's just so many foreign things to navigate through:

Go ahead, click on the picture above and take a closer look. Like what is any of it? You think you're buying hot dogs, you better be careful because they eat parts of animals that we apparently shun and ship to Korea, like Chicken anus. I'm not kidding, it's a delicacy. A whole bowl of chicken anus's (anuses? anusi?) all fried up and served hot. So I have a policy of not buying ANY protein unless I can identify exactly what part of the animal it came from.

Hiking this week has been great. The girls and I drop off the kids at school and then meet at the top of the hill and hike in the Mtns. It's so much easier living the Urban life if you can go get out into nature a few times a week. The views from the top of the Mtn are great. It's sunny almost every day and the temps have been very cold again, but are warming up now.

Actually it's hard to tell how cold it is out, because our apartment is always so toasty. Lately we have been enjoying the sun porches a lot. Here's Ted painting out on the porch. He's wearing a shirt he got for Christmas. It's from a new children's clothing line called the "Freddy Kruger Collection". Awesome.

On Wednesday, some of the girls and I went to eat at this really cool little Korean restaurant that looks like a giant mushroom or something you would find in the Shire. Mari (Finland) is in the stripes. She is like 9 months preggo and still hikes with us every day. Rock star! Then clockwise: Selma (Japan), Kari (Norway) and Akie (Japan) with her son Ryota who is in the Kindy class with Teddy.

The food was AWESOME! Best Korean food I have had by far, and the first time that I thought something was so tasty that I would bring someone else there to try it or want to send back to the kitchen for more. They make a Korean pancake that is out of this world. I am taking Jeff and the kids there for lunch today. The side dishes:

So the Kimchee is the pile of red stuff at the top of the picture, then clockwise there is a stack of seaweed ( I guess to wrap whatever you want to eat in, but Teddy just likes to snack on it plain like chips...) Then spinach, potatoes, Mushrooms, some peppers, and in the middle some little dried fish. Still not crazy for the tiny whole fish but I always try them. Maybe they grow on you?

On Thursday the stage one (Sasha's class) Mom's had a meeting at the clubhouse at 1PM so Ted had to skip his nap. He was playing with some of his friends and then came up and said "Mama can I have your sweater?" in his little Barry White voice which means he wants me to take off my sweater so he can use it like a blankie and suck his thumb. I was like "Ted do you want a cozy nest?" "Uh-huh". And that was it. Passed out on the floor of the clubhouse with mad activity all around him. The other moms couldn't believe it. Hopefully this is one of only a small number of times in his life he passes out on the floor of a bar.

This morning Sasha and I had another Birthday party to go to. It was for her classmate Sanjana. There is a HUGE community of Indians here at the HFC (foreigners Compound) and they throw the BEST parties. They are all vegetarians and the food they make is absolutely amazing. Plus their clothes are gorgeous and comfortable yet very sparkly and I can't help wondering why we all can't dress like them.

These little balls were made out of carrot and maybe sweet potato and were sooo delish:

Lots of other good things. Halfway through my plate I was like "Seriously, can you guys adopt me into your tribe or what? I'll wear the jeweled dot and everything, just please teach me to cook like this!"

They are a very friendly, open and generous group and always want to make sure that everyone is eating and enjoying their time. Their children are gorgeous and sweet and their music is very loud and Bollywood ish which cracks me up because it is exactly what I would have expected.

Sanjana and Tanaisha (both in Sasha's class) showed us some of their best moves:



So that's all for now. Everyone keep your eyes open for an old Fedora hat, a glove with knife fingers and a burn mask. With these 3 items Ted will be all set for Halloween 2010.