Oh the horror of it all.....

Not everything in Korea is OK. In fact there is a horrible trend that I have been documenting for some time now and the day has come where it needs to be brought out into the open. This shameful national secret could cause Korea to lose trade agreements, and basically just decimate the hard earned respect that the Koreans have gained with the rest of the world in the last few decades. 

Here's the deal: the Koreans don't have dogs. They have tiny, overbred, poop-eating, neurotic little curs that they somehow try to pass off as dogs even though they dye their fur and put outfits on them. It's a national plague I'm telling you.

Some of you are going to think this is "cute" and some of you are going to come up with possible reasons why they feel the need to breed/purchase/dye/dress up these little freaks on a leash. If that was your knee-jerk reaction, you need to check yourself. The Koreans will not be helped by the rest of us down-playing the seriousness of the problem and giving them excuses to latch on to. They need to own it so this stops happening:

I have been taking photos for a while now, PRETENDING to like the dog in question so that I could get a photo for this expose. I wave my camera and  use a nice high pitch voice, cuz they don't understand what I'm saying anyway: "Aww, how tragic, can I snap a photo of your little freaky poop-eating dog?" and they get all excited and start nodding and babbling in Korean "Oh look, the Wegugins just love little Kimchee! I bet she wants one just like him."

 WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!

First of all, lets examine why mankind has built a relationship with domesticated dogs.

 In early years dogs worked for man by herding, guarding, or even pulling loads. Today people may have dogs (of course I'm talking about REAL dogs) for security or companionship. You can't accomplish ANY of the above goals with these screwball little clowns.

They're not going to protect you from anything and they're so darn neurotic that they may be barking because there's an intruder or they may be barking because they're upset about the metric system, or they may just be totally mental. They may snuggle you OR then may spin around and bite you in the face because they forgot who you were because their brains were never meant to fit in such small spaces and they are literally bat-shit CRAZY.

Look at the larger white dog in this picture. I'm talking about the dog that is actually approaching normal dog size. The dog that seems to know that wearing blue negligee is sick and wrong. He's like "dude, there was nothing I could do, they forced me to go out like this." His pain is palpable. The little over-bred freakshow in the foreground however has non of this awareness. I bet it sleeps on a little raised pink bed too. Craziness.

Ladies and Gentlemen THIS is a real dog:

Check him out. He's noble, loving, he's got dog pride yo, and he would never, NEVER betray the trust by biting your child in the hand like one of the freakishy small dogs did to Ryota for no reason as he was running down the sidewalk. So some of you will now say "hey, it's an Asian country, they don't have room for large dogs and a bigger dog is more expensive to feed." Baloney. If you've got enough money to send a 4 pound dog (4 POUNDS!!!) to the groomer for COLOR, and enough money to pay for the insane medical bills that these small dogs amass due to the myriad of problems brought on by overbreeding, and enough money to pay for the therapy that you're going to need after owning one of these nightmares, then you have enough money to own and maintain a real, larger dog that will eat a bit more but not create any of those other issues. 

"But what will the Koreans do with all these tiny dogs when we stage this massive intervention?" Not a problem, I've thought of that too, so glad you asked. We are going to create a brand new spectator sport that will combine gambling, adventure, thrills and suspense while restoring the economy of Central Oregon. Here's how it'll work. Instead of coloring ears and stuff, we'll spray paint a number on the side of each one of these little fluff pots. They're usually white or some other light color so the numbers should show up pretty well.

Then we'll set about 20 of the little suckers loose in Drake Park, right in the middle of Bend. Everybody puts $100 or more on the number of their choice and then the spectators get to kick back in lawn chairs with a nice pint from the Deschutes Brewery. First dog that gets picked off by a Bald Eagle or Great Horned Owl wins the pot. I mean c'mon we support the proliferation of birds of prey (they could have some awfully nice little jackets to line their nests with - BONUS!), bring a kickin' tourist base to Bend, and save the Koreans from themselves all at the same time? Win, Win, WIN!

If you, yourself have a tiny mongrel like this and you hate me right now, just think, you could be part of my pilot program! Beta testers get to join for free!

Teddy's Birthday!

 So T-man has know for AGES that he wanted a Dinosaur party. Thus I was on a mission to rock it like a T-Rex. We found these great little eggs and decided they would make perfect invites. Each one had a dino puzzle inside! We put our little invite in with the puzzle and then made new bands around the seam as we had to rip off the ones that they came with to get into them.

Anyone who was at the "Wonderpets" party last year in TX will remember that Ted PARKED himself in front of the cheese ball barrel at his party and had to be dragged from it to participate in his own party! Well, he was one happy boy when they had the same barrel of cheese balls at the Costco in Busan. I got him 2 and let him open one the night before so he would be less obsessed with them on party day. He was psyched!! (PS: 2 cheese barrels = lots of left over cheese balls = bad idea mom...)

 Natasha (of the amazing cupcakes fame) also made Teddy's cake. It was a work of art! Chocolate sheet cake with a vanilla volcano cake and little dino cakes on top. Candy rocks, lava icing, you name it. It was awesome! (and it tasted as good as it looked!)

 There were some Dino tracks leading the way toward the fun....

 And a digging station for paleontologists to be outside. Jeff and Ted buried 24 plastic dinos in bins weeks before the party and the dirt dried out nicely so the kids had to hack through some rock-like layers to find a dinosaur. Here's Teddy and his buddy Matthew digging for a "fossil."

 Bunch of Jr. Paleontologists:

 Meanwhile, I was hooking Ted's BFF Ryota up with some rocking dino Tats:

 Happy Birthday Boy!

 When kids found a dino in the dig pit, they had to take it to the Dinosaur Encyclopedia research station to see if they could identify it. I had a few awesome Big Sister helpers giving the little ones a helping hand. Here's Sasha and Maddie looking up dinos for Thomas:

 Then we moved in and made a dinosaur sticker scene....

 ....and then on to some sand art!

 Sasha was such a great helper!

Me and my boy working hard on some sand art:

Ted munching away on some lunch.

The cake!! It was so awesome I almost didn't want to cut into it but of course we did. It was delish!

Lighting the "Volcano". Check out my super-brave girl:

Making a wish and blowing out the candles:

Can't blow those suckers out so we'll just watch them burn!

"I want a piece of the volcano!"
"I want a Dinosaur"
" I want THAT piece!"
Yeah, that X 20!

Mom trying to fill all those orders:

So the boy is 4 years old. Can you believe it? And can you believe I had to get used to the idea of having a boy? I look at Teddy now and tell him that he is everything I never knew I always wanted. What a kid!
Here's a link to Birthday Video.
And finally, T-Man about 30 minutes after we got home from the party. Hey, just because you're 4 doesn't mean you're done nappin' right?

Japan - Final Thoughts

On Sunday, we woke up, Paid 80$ for a tiny breakfast, and then made our way to the airport. From our original vacation cash budget I bought lunch to take on the plane and had about 80 cents left over.
Not to be out-done, Jeff then bought a coke so we ended up with 15 cents left at the end of our vacation! Now we have a few souvenir coins and no money to change back into Won!

 So for anyone that dreams of going to Japan, here's the scoop. Japan is really, REALLY expensive. If you have 10 grand burning a hole in your pocket do it, but if you just want a really cool Asian experience, consider coming to Korea instead. I thought Japan would be really clean and spotless, kind of like Germany. It wasn't. There was garbage and urban sprawl that went on forever and the countryside even seemed kind of run down and messy. Now I haven't seen all of Japan, so I know there is unspoiled countryside out there somewhere. I just didn't get to see it.
You know in Korea we all live in these high rise apartments. They're not beautiful, but they are a good way to manage large populations in urban areas. The apartments keep the cities more condensed and leave the country side unspoiled. Japan is waaaaay more crowded than Korea, yet all the housing is 2-3 story homes so the Cities go on FOREVER and if you look at Japan on Google earth you can see that at this point that almost the entire country is infrastructure/housing/cities/suburbs.
I would also say that the shrines and temples that I have seen here in Korea are just as beautiful as the ones in Japan. Maybe more so because they tend to be nestled up in the mountains, not smack dab in the middle of cities with stained concrete houses all around them. It's much less crowded here and you can actually tour and see things without being in a shuffling mob.
Korea is a much better bargain for travel as well. You can get a great meal for 4 here for around 25$. When we went to the Amazing Dinosaur museum here admission plus parking was $12 for all 4 of us for the day! Some things are comparable to US prices like clothes, but most things are probably a bit cheaper.
Prices in Japan are staggering. Want an glass of juice at breakfast? 8$. Want a 500 sq ft studio apartment? $400,000. WHAT!?!
Yeah, Yeah, but there's cherry blossoms in the spring there right? Yeah, Korea has them too:

Here are some up in the hills where I hike everyday:

 And again, if I lived in a Japanese city, there wouldn't be miles and miles of hiking trails out my back door because they just don't have the wild spaces. Here's my friend Kari up in the hills:

So there you go. I'm not against going to Japan, I'm just saying there might be places to visit that will give you a similar experience for a lot less $$$. Plus you can visit US!!
That being said:
If you are a Disney Freak at all, (you know who you are...) Get a jar, no seriously go get one I'll wait here...
OK. Label it "Tokyo Disney Trip" and start throwing in the loose change. TDR is amazing and if you're a fan of the Magic, do try to get there someday.
Last but not least:
We flew to Japan on JAL. They gave the kids blow up airplanes and square paper to do Origami on:

Then we flew back on Korean Airlines. They gave us chubby plush airplanes plus an activity pack with colored pencils PLUS a Paint with water then let it dry then paint it again Pororo book and re-fillable brush! I'm just sayin'......

Japan Day 8 - We're just not that cultured....

 So we discovered something about ourselves on this trip. We're just not that cultured. Some of you are going to read this entry and shake your fist at the screen going "Curse those Stolaszes! I'd give ANYTHING to go to Japan and they didn't even appreciate it!". Ok, Ok, we did kind of appreciate it. I mean I appreciated Tokyo Disney A LOT, so that counts for something, and I dig green tea ice cream. It's just that if you've seen a Shinto shrine or an Imperial Japanese Palace, you really have seen them all. As a matter of fact, there's a Shinto shrine AND a palace structure in the Japan pavilion at Epcot so you can see them both in the states and save yourself like 10 grand! (Aren't you glad you know me?). Anyway, we kind of found out that we should probably stick to beaches and theme parks when it comes to vacationing so that's good to know.

We started out the day at some "Castle" in Kyoto. Now when I think "Castle" I start thinking about turrets and princesses and moats and giant haunches of meat spitted and roasting in huge fire pits and tapestries and dungeons. You know, a CASTLE. In Japan a castle is a large horizontal complex with outer hallways, empty rectangular rooms and sliding doors. So this Castle had a really cool garden but our guide thought it would be much, MUCH better to look at 258 consecutive, identical, empty rooms in this sprawling building and skip the gardens. "This is the empty square room where the scribes worked, and this is the empty square room where the Emperor slept, and this is the empty square room where they washed vegetables....." Fascinating! Like would it kill you to set up a diorama of what life was like in the empty rooms?

Next we went to the famed "Golden Pavillion". There was a huge gong that I did NOT get to ring. Would have made the day much more exciting...

 So this is where I'll probably start losing people. I mean it's the FAMOUS  Golden Pavilion right? What you don't see is that I am standing in a crowd of about 10,00000000 people all nudging me and trying to get the same shot so that makes it a little less special.

 The kids at the Golden Pavilion. At this point Jeff goes: "Yup, that's a golden Pavilion all right. Want to get some Green Tea Ice cream?"
Me: Fo Sho.

 Lovely gardens: (See, I appreciate them.)

 Jeff attempts to summon his inner "Zen-ness". The ice cream helped.

 Next we went to the Imperial Palace of Kyoto which is only open 2 days a year, and today was one of those days. Lucky Us! So we got to shuffle in a packed mob of people through this compound with empty square rooms and gates and stuff. None of it really stood out.

 A rare moment where we emerged into a couryard and got a bit of space. Then we were funneled back into the tour route and had to do the shoulder to shoulder shuffle again. I think there is a Samurai Dude in this picture acting something out:

 I did really like the Japanese Gardens. That was actually way better than the buildings if you ask me...

 And the Cherry Blossoms were lovely:

 So then they took us to another Shinto Shrine. It was red.

 Love the trees where the  flowers cascade down like this:

 Poser!

 Again, they walked us through the gardens but this is the crowd level. I mean you couldn't stop and look at things or walk at a normal stride because it was so darn crowded.

 Last stop on the tour was some Shrine or Castle or Temple (take your pick - I forget...) high up on a hill. At this point we were like "Whew! Wouldn't have wanted to miss this!" and blazed through it to get ahead of another Mob and then wandered through a little shopping district.

 The kids were awesome. I mean we did a great job pretending that it was all very, very interesting and exciting and they bought it to some extent. What great tourists they are. Of course at their age they'll always find some cool angle and it's never what you'd expect. Here Sasha is pretending to hold up this thing with her head because it's exactly her size:

After this we took a cab back to the train station and caught another bullet train back to Tokyo. Sasha and I snuck into a store and got Teddy a cake and some "Pocky" sticks to act as candles and we had a little B-day celebration on the bullet train. Check out the video HERE.