A trip to Australia - Fremantle

 A few days after Christmas we headed to Australia to meet up with the Smiths. We had planned this trip for a while but when the trip actually came it was bittersweet because the Smith's had just left Korea and were headed for their next assignment in Dubai. So it turned out to be a last Hurrah with some of our favorite Australians.
The trip was off to a great start in Hong Kong where they had a Disney store! Check out all the Chinese Mickey stuff!

We stayed in Fremantle the first few nights and fell in love with the city. On New Year's Eve we took the kids to a fantastic park on the river and let them swim and play while the adults hung out.

We even got to meet up with Lorren, Darren, and Harrison!

Julian makes a new friend.

On New Year's Day, Sasha decided to spend the day puking (she seems to have a policy where she only gets sick on vacation. Unless it's Disney...) so our choices were limited. She actually picked a good day to do it as we had it slated as kind of a chill out/rest day which we definitely did.

Jeff and Teddy and I took turns going out, exploring parts of "Freeo" and touring the Prison. We actually got to stay at the Fremantle Prison - it's one of the oldest prisons in Australia and was built with convict labor.

We rented a cottage that was used for female guards and their families. It was awesome! We had 2 bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen and a back garden. It was a perfect place to stay with a sick kid because we had lots of room to spread out and relax. Teddy spent part of his time creating some photos with a friend which I only discovered after we got home!

Freeo is super-cool. It's got the neatest little streets and the architecture is amazing. It's full of characters and yet completely clean. And there are TONS of amazing restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores. Totally my kind of place!

And best of all, it's full of Australians! They are a rare breed, those aussies.... the younger generation all look like supermodels (one young man that was helping me with directions was so drop-dead gorgeous that I actually got all flustered and forgot how to talk for a bit..) and then there's no middle aged people, and then when they re-emerge as senior citizens they are the funkiest looking people imaginable. I have no idea how the gorgeous youth of Oz somehow morph over the course of their lifetimes into dudes with crazy hair, bizarre beards, and faces that have tufts of hair sprouting from strange, strange places, but apparently around age 50 the weird hair gene kicks in. The cool thing is that they can pull this look off with their awesome Aussie accents. Check this store out. If you said the name of this store in their accent it actually would come out sounding like "Shock and Awe". So it works!

Cool buildings everywhere....

The next day Sasha was better so we got back with the Smith's and checked out some really great parks.

There were tons of playgrounds and botanical gardens so we played and hiked and just generally enjoyed the warm weather.

The kids could have done anything and had a great time! After the parks we headed to Cottesloe beach for a swim.

Then next morning we went south to Dunsborough (say it "Duns-Bra"). But that's another post. So fast forward to the end of our trip where we went back to Freeo for a few more nights. Jeff had business so we got to crash in his hotel with him and then he had to fly back to Korea. The kids and I got to enjoy a bit more of the town and had an EXCELLENT breakfast right in the middle of everything. Great food + people watching!

After that we just strolled around and took in more of the sights.

We found the coolest shop down this street that had bulk foods and I bought Quinoa and tons of other things to bring back to Korea. Score!!

Every part of town was like this. Just amazing colonial architecture and it was all meticulously maintained.

Then Zoe and Emily came and took us to an Australian store. Teddy wanted to buy it all. Here he's got some kind of severed animal foot backscratcher... it actually HURT, so don't ask a kangaroo for a backscratch. Just in case you're ever in that situation...

No Ted, you can't have an outfit made from animal skins. This is after I talked him out of buying the bottle opener made from sheep testicles. They have a great sense of humor those Aussies.....

I have been to many places in many countries and I have to say that Fremantle Australia is the nicest small city I have EVER been to. It really has everything. Great free transport in the form of "Cat" buses, amazing buildings, several incredible markets that sell organic produce and local crafts, great people, wonderful parks, it's right on the water, the weather is fantastic and it's CLEAN! Seriously, if you're one of those people that's always looking for a great place to visit, add it to your list.

I would happily volunteer to proof-read....

 One quirky thing we've discovered in our travels is that Asian cultures are as obsessed with English writing as we are with Chinese characters. So they really, really like to put English on signs, banners, labels, cards and pretty much anything else they can think of and they almost always get it wrong. Now before you judge, think about how many people you know that have a totally "edgy" tattoo with a Chinese character or Sandscrit or some other unreadable language because it looks cool. I guess English looks as cool to their eyes as theirs does to ours.

One of the most glaring misunderstandings the Koreans have with English is the misuse of the word "Story" at some point the word got mistranslated and the whole country latched on. EVERYTHING is a "story".

 We have integrated this into our daily lives.
    Me: "Dude! What's all this smoke in the kitchen?"
   Jeff:  Ahh... burnt pancake story..."

 Jeff: "How come you're not running today?"
Me: "Sore hamstring story"

So if your store is Organic it's not just Organic, it's a "Green Story"...

 Oh no, Wait......

So that's one small example of something we see every day. Then there is just a total weirdness of use and or phrasing. So you get greeting cards that say "Each one lovers the others forever!" and T-shirts that say "My charlie" and even worse THIS FANTASTIC EXAMPLE. (Mom, I am not linking to a swear word, I am linking to a Type-O).

   They also love to link things with human life. Very relative things. Like Banking?

Now an apple I can kind of understand. I mean an apple a day keeps the Dr. away right? Choose wisely.....

 Then there's the ones that just make you feel like you're in a parallel universe. This place was a chaucy hot-dog stand. See where it says "Delicious Life! Wellbeing Life!"? Yeah, it gets better.

Here's the official slogan for the Dog King:

 I would totally volunteer to proofread all of this stuff for them BTW. I mean they've got a compound full of Expat trophy wives here who would LOVE a part-time job fixing their little hallmark slogans and signs. But no one ever asks for my help. And the Koreans forge bravely onward. Here's some window stickers for the next global pandemic:

 Kind of makes you wonder how many Americans are walking around with Chinese characters on their shoulders that REALLY say "total doofus" or "smack me".

Christmas in Korea

 Christmas in Korea is TOUGH. It's not a big holiday here so there's no music or lights on the houses or Christmas feel in the shops. And anytime you want to bake something you can't find the main ingredient. No peppermint extract, no molasses, and no candy-canes. So you have to get your jollies where you can find them. We saw this display at Mega-mart so we had to get a pic:

The kids did a GREAT play at school called "Santa's Hat" Sasha was a narrator and Teddy was the cutest snowman EVER!

 Sasha and her buddy Euan goofing off before the show:

 What a cast of characters!

 Singing away up on the stage:

 My hedgehogs!

 Big finish. Sasha ended up dead center in the middle for the whole show. What a spot!

 Then, the day after the play, Hyundai re-opened the newly renovated clubhouse!

 New Dining room:

Our very favorite Croatians in the new Kid's play room:

 Zoe, this used to be the GYM!! This is the upstairs reading room.

 Aaaand the new Gym, where the squash courts used to be. It's really gorgeous and we need it so badly right now as the weather has finally turned freezing!

 The only problem is the clubhouse was then closed again for a week so no gym, no clubhouse. Oh, and then they lost their license so no food or drink except for coffee and tea. And you can't take books out of the library either. So the clubhouse is basically like a nice new shiny toy that no one's supposed to touch. I liked the old, chaucy usable version much better....
Christmas eve we went to a gathering at Bridget and Mike's apt up at Santeville.

 Santa brought all the kids something and the adults did a yankee swap to the hilarity of all.

 And then it was the big day! Sasha wanted one thing for Christmas and the big guy came through!

 Teddy had to dig right into his stocking of course,

And then he had to try everything out:

 Teddy didn't want anything specific for Christmas (!!) so Santa brought him Wall Tracks and they were pretty much already on the wall when he woke up. A toy you never have to clean up because it's attached to the wall??? Brilliant!

 Being the great Mom that she is, Sasha made sure that there were presents under the tree for Kit and Emily. And she even helped them unwrap their gifts!

 So at about 11am this was the state of my house. And we were hosting Christmas dinner at 4! At this point I was wondering what I had gotten myself into....

 But we rallied. Cleaned up, decorated a final batch of Christmas cookies and got sorted. This is what happens when you think you're going to Korea for 1 year so you don't bring any Christmas stuff with you. You end up with lots of Dinosaur and Mickey Christmas cookies!

 Mema saved the day when she sent us peppermint extract. So we were able to make our own candy canes and we used them as decorative place settings:

 The kids table:

Then everyone arrived. We had a great night with kids and friends and wonderful conversation and tons of laughter!

After Christmas we still had a week to hang out before heading to Aus so we did some fun outings. The kids and I went to Grand Park where they have this giant outdoor bouncy thing.

 And since I was STILL locked out of the new gym, these guys became my running buddies for the week. This is a great way to increase your speed if you're training for a race BTW. And you have to save enough breath to be able to yell "wait up for Mooooomm!" over long distances....