Dressing Up . . . Hanbok Style

 The traditional Korean dress is called "hanbok".  For one week each month, the Korean Tourist Organization gives tourists an opportunity to experience some aspects of traditional Korean culture such as trying on hanbok, having your name written in tradtional calligraphy in the Korean alphabet called "hangul", doing oragami, etc.  These are photos from our experience.  The kids were pretty excited that they could already write their names in hangul for the calligrapher to copy.

MJ manages to capture traditional and
current Korean culture in one shot!

Lotus Lantern Festival

 The parade was a much more solomn occasion this year, following the recent Sewol ferry tragedy.  It was without the traditional festive music and dancing that usually accompanies this celebration.  Many lanterns were lit in rememberance of those who lost their lives.  The whole country is truly suffering and devastated over this unbelievable loss.  South Korea seems like such an advanced country until something like this occurs.  We have prayed much for the families and had many great discussions about personal responsibility, good judgment, preparation, and sacrifice.  Hopefully valuable lessons are being learning all across the board.

We wondered what we would do without camping chairs, but they had lots of chairs set up along the road sides, especially for tourists.  We had great seats.

Cherry Blossom Festival

Cherry Blossom Festival wasn't supposed to begin until next weekend, but the unusually warm weather in March caused the blossoms to bloom earlier than they have in 92 years.  So hasty preparations were made to bump the festival up a whole week.  The weather was much cooler for the festival.  I had put all the winter gear away, and then had to break it out again.  But it wasn't cold, and we had a great day enjoying over 1500 cherry blossom trees near Yeouido Park.



Picnic by the pond.



Joy tries to hop the fence to get a closer look at the fish.

Hyrum always finds a friend!

Lotus Lantern Festival Preparations

We are looking forward to the upcoming Lotus Lantern festival at the end of this month.  It is a celebration of Buddah's birthday and involves a parade of thousands of lanterns, as well as tradional korean performances.  We went to a Buddhist museum this week and then stopped by the main Buddhist temple in Seoul to check out the preparations for the festival.  Of course, I had just put my camera away when a small Buddhist monk walked up to the kids as we were leaving and shook each of their hands and made donald duck noises at them.

There were many volunteers sitting at tables outside of the
temple making hundreds of lanterns out of "hanji"
 (traditional homemade Korean paper).

Adding designs with colored paper.

Jogyesa Temple

Korean Food- Trial and Error

Joy waiting patiently for the food to arrive.

 We have really liked some of the Korean food that we have tried, but there are definitely some things that are not our favorite or would require some getting used to.  The kids have been very open to trying new things, so it has been fun.  There is actually a lot that we might like if it were not for the spice.  We are all very "weak" when it comes to spicy dishes.  We probably would have liked this dinner better if we weren't constantly drinking water or wiping our noses in between bites because it was soooo spicy  We had to ask for extra water four different times and left piles of napkins on the table from wiping our dripping noses.  Yuck!

Amelia removing her shoes at the door.  You do this in all houses
as well.

            

There is usually a box/container on the table
with spoons and chopsticks.  They don't use
forks (traditionally).  The chopsticks in Korea are
usually made out of metal, not wood like some
other asian countries.  Also a napkin container
and small metal cups.  And pepper but no salt
 (as if you need more spice!).





There is always a side of kimchi.  It isn't my favorite thing, but
I actually try to eat a little each day.   I read that it is
one of the healthiest foods in the world.  It's fermented, and thanks to
my mom I'm a big believer in the "good bacteria".