Sunday, June 21, 2009

continued!

see! i'm back! whoo hoo!

wednesday-everland. korean disney world-ish? more walking up & down mountains. who knew that korea isn't flat? if we didn't before, we do now! lots of rides & a huge roller coaster & lunch out of the cooler & feeding birds out of our hands & boo the monkey house was closed! probably because it was late & dinner time. baby rides & big rides & a helicycle thing that had no electricity-leg powered! which, isn't so great the day after a mountain climb. but we made it around. and we did the safari with lions & tigers & bears, oh my. and a water ride with rapids but ponchos on the boat so we didn't get much wet. except for where the water sloshed in anyway but then there were dryers at the end so you could dry off! yay korea! lots of junk food in the form of ice cream & churros. but that's what vacation is for, right? and home late at night for 1 & nallie to fall into bed as they had DMZ trip in the morning. i, however, had the day off!

(yes, yes, stay dry on the water ride! so fancy!)


thursday-nallie & 1 headed for the DMZ while i stayed home to hold down the fort. haha, get it? ok. i'm a dork. still recovering from tourist-zilla. they got up at some ridiculous hour to head for seoul to get on a bus. they said it was kind of creepy. there were some pictures. maybe i'll go someday. no kids allowed so it's been kind of difficult to get up there. possibly i could go alone since i'm all brave these days & stuff. the kids & i stayed home & hit the water park for a bit. still no stinkin baby pool. at this rate, i won't get to use it til next year! it was kinda quiet since after the water park, littlest & i came home for a nap & biggest & middlest went to hang out. and then everyone came home all at once & it got very loud. and then we all went to bed so we could get up & go again in the morning. see why i'm so tired?


(glad you two are taking this so seriously. but it does look rather like an amusement park, doesn't it?)

and finally friday. sigh. friday? already? GEEZ. friday was seoul day. we took the metro up and then climbed.another.mountain. this one was more like a hill. but sore calf & quads made it feel like a mountain. we at lunch at the base of the namsan cable car-more bibimbap except cold this time. seaweed. {{shudder}} except for that it wasn't bad. then cable car'd to the tower. same old, same old except this time with nallie! yay! went up in the tower & checked out the 360 degree view of seoul. still awesome. really? a city is THAT big? that may explain the traffic.... came down for some ice cream. the ground got mine as it jumped off the cone & onto my shirt before hitting bottom. people laughed. sigh. i got more ice cream. it was good. then onto a bus that was supposed to take us to the metro so we could go to cheongye stream-it's a riverwalk type thing. but no one listens to me & my stellar navigation skills so we ended up in an old people park where they played gate ball & some board game & slept on four wheelers. that's what i want to do when i grow up-sleep on a four wheeler in a park. then the boys found a little league park while the girls tried to figure out where the heck in street-sign-less korea we were. and of course we weren't where we meant to be. backtracked to a metro station & finally found the stream after some hot dogs & smoothies (most fruit is the english word written in hanguel. except strawberry. that is something like dalgi). walked down the stream/riverwalk and found a world refugee day thing at the end. that would feature angelina jolie that evening! or the next. we weren't quite sure. and lots of police. LOOOOOOOTTTTTTSSSS of police. geez. nallie & i decided that that night was a good night for the sauna. so we all got back on the metro & nallie & i got off at the next stop because we SWORE that's where the sauna was. except it wasn't? but it was where all the protesters were. hence the huge police presence. but apparently it wasn't an anti-american protest because then it would have been scarier. still not sure what they were protesting. wandered around and around and around the station trying to locate the missing sauna. FINALLY got talked into visiting the information desk. where the lightbulb went on! if you're looking for the DRAGON HILL SAUNA, you might want to check at the YONGSAN station (yongsan is dragon hill in korean...duh). that was nice. hopped back on the metro, found the sauna & then had some chinese food in korea-yum! nallie was all excited about "igo kogi" (no meat) cause she finally got to use it. it was good food. and then we headed for the sauna. yay! had a bath & then a scrub/massage with a helicopter moment & then checked out the whole ginormous sauna & met some lost koreans. americans showing the koreans how to sauna? huh? that was cool. found a sleeping room with some yos (flat floor mattresses) & little rectangular pillows. slept in a room full of strange women & woke up butt-crack of dawn to hop the metro again for pyeongtaek. took nallie to emart for some last minute stuff & then back on the train again. and that brings us back to the beginning of the first post.

(the only pic you'll get of the sauna. stolen from miss jet lag. did you really want to see nekkid old ladies?)

it was the fastest week ever. i miss having someone to play with. now it's back to the real world of work & laundry & summer reading books. there is something to look forward to, though. i won't get into that now. and if you already know, keep your mouth shut!

back to my real world before that baby of mine destroys something. she has just handed me a golf club & asked me to play. guess that's my hint.

banni-who tried to finish this post last night but then had to go out with 1 for father's day & then came home & fell asleep. who also thinks that while she will never be a full-fledged hiker, probably won't say no if asked to climb another mountain. once she recovers from this one, of course

2 comments:

just a girl said...

now when you say 'we' swore it was the right metro stop, you really mean YOU swore it was the right stop. i can claim ignorance seeing as how i had never been to korea before.

Banni said...

well...perhaps by "we", i meant myself & another american in korea who has been there before whom, if you will remember, we had on the telephone for a minute to try to ascertain if we were in the right place. that's what i meant by "we". sheesh. paranoid. i didn't know that was a side effect of jet lag?