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....

Tokyo Disney Day 2

So there have been some questions as to why on Earth we would go to Tokyo Dis right after WDW. Here's how it went down: We planned to take my parents to WDW so we had that trip planned FOREVER. Then, due to a 3 day school holiday my buddies decided to fly from Korea to Japan to visit Tokyo Disney Resort. Since our travel back to Korea routed through Tokyo and coincided with their arrival we just booked a 3 day layover on our journey home. I HAD to do it. Seriously. These guys needed a Disney park expert to take them around so I selflessly made the sacrifice and took one for the team. Not a dry eye in the room right now I bet...
Moving on:
   On day 2 we headed over to Tokyo Disney Sea - one of the best Disney parks on Earth in my opinion,  and got in line for raging spirits - a cool little roller coaster with a 360 degree loop. This was Ted's first time being tall enough for this ride so of course he had to be first in line!

We did it!

We knew it was going to be a busy day so we tried to get the headliners out of the way early. The next ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth, a ride only found at TDR!

Then it was off to Mermaid Lagoon to play in Ariel's Grotto!

2 Buddies under the sea:

What a bunch of goof-balls!

On to the Arabian coast:

Once again I was unable to capture all 8 of them in a single picture. I think we lost a few behind the camel...

I absolutely love the theming and all the attention to detail in this park:

More shots of the Arabian coast:

Then we headed back to the Mayan River Delta to ride Indiana Jones. I actually had to buy the ride photo on this one. I mean 12 of us and 12 seats on the ride - how could I pass this up?

For lunch we ate at Magellans, it was a cool little restaurant in the castle right next to the Volcano in the middle of the park. Lunch was excellent.

We headed back to our hotel for a rest, came back and watched Fantasmic. Then we took a night ride on Aquatopia.

Sasha and Emily:

Allison and Euan:

After that we looped around the park looking for food. Got a pic of Sasha and Raja:

We finally found a counter-service location that was open and we all piled in, starving, for a VERY late dinner. Then we headed home on the monorail.

The next day was Saturday and I had never experienced a weekend at TDR. It was sure to be crazy! The kids and I got there before park opening so we could ride a few headliners before the crowds got too insane. It was VERY wet!

We rode Raging Spirits and Indiana Jones with no wait! Then we rode a few smaller rides which were also walk-ons.

After that the crowds started to build so we went to do Castle Explorations. This is just getting a map, heading into the castle and exploring all of these interactive rooms. This one was our fav. It had the sun and all the planets and you turned cranks to make the planets revolve around the sun.

We were walking back to the entrance and we saw this wait-time:

180 MINUTES!!! Are you serious? Good thing we got to the park early to do what we wanted. I can't even imagine waiting that long for a ride! We headed back to the hotel to meet our friends and then we all headed to the airport together. With that crew even the ride home was fun!

Tokyo Disney Day 1

I was a bit worried about making the last bus to Tokyo Disney Resort (did NOT want to take the subway in Tokyo at rush hour!) But we made it just in time!

We stayed our first night at the Ambassador hotel. It was so cool and we were happy to have our long plane flight behind us!

 Like all hotels in Japan, the toiletries were awesome...

 And there were even PJ's for us to wear!

And the Disney details were fabulous:

 The hotel is art-deco style and the lobby, halls and even the door to our room were really cool!

 They had a globe in front of the elevators that showed a golden Mickey icon each place on Earth where there is a Disney park. These guys are of course pointing to 2 of our favs:

 The lobby. Check out the constellation ceiling with characters from Peter Pan!

 We had to change money so we headed out to the shopping district. ATM's in Japan are few and far between. We had to hike quite a ways to find one. But we did find a Disney store.

 The next morning we woke up and saw that our room had a view of the castle and BTMRR!

We jumped on the shuttle bus to Tokyo Disneyland. Check out the cool bus details!

 Can someone please tell me how they pull off Palm Trees in this climate??

 Last time I was hear I missed this detail. All the monorail stations have gorgeous paintings showing scenes from different attractions in the park. They are AMAZING!

 We jumped in one of the lines to hold a spot for our group. Of course I had to do all the holding. These guys just ran all around.

 The Japanese sit down whenever they have to wait for anything. Even parades! They all bring little mats to sit on.

 Finally our friends arrived. We raced into the park and rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

 Splash was next. Me and the kids:

 Mom's and Charlie!

Tried in vain the entire trip to get a photo of all 8 kids actually looking at the camera. Here's 7 out of 8 and Teddy's back:

The whole gang!

The shuttle buses are amazing and were all decked out for Christmas.

Even the brake lights have the Mickey shape!

After a rest back at the hotel we headed back into the park. We ate Dinner at Grandma Sara's Kitchen which is like an animal burrow under the ground. We entered the restaurant through the exit and got right in line for food and only then did we realize that there was a massive line one floor up where they were only letting people down into the ordering line one group at a time. Massive Queue-jump. We felt OK about since we didn't do it on purpose and didn't figure it out until after we ordered. But it did become something of a manta for Tokyo Dis: When in doubt, enter through the exit!

We had time for a ride on Space Mountain before finding a great spot to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade:

It was a great first day! 4 Moms and 8 kids and no one even got lost!