Something spooky

Bee had to write a story about something spooky for school and so she wrote a story about a ghost. here is the picture she drew to illustrate her story. I had to laugh as it is the sweetest, cutest ghost i have seen in a while!

A nature day

We had fun with nature today. We found a spider in her web eating a fly!! I hope you can see it in this picture! Then we found an old hornets nest that Frankie is holding in her hand. And then there was the playground and the hike around the fields with Ms. Cho!

today at the park

nice fall michigan day!

random pics

Here are a few fun pics. Bee at the ND football game. Frankie and her friend in our backyard by our super huge puffball mushrooms! (they are edible, and people cook them up in olive oil with garlic. not me though!). And Bee with a picture she drew while waiting her turn at the doctors office! And the Cho Cho after going running! And Scott and the girls when we were at Mackinac Island.

1st day of school!

Frankie has been waiting for this day for over a year! She is a big kindergartner and marble muscrat just like her big sis! Needless to say she woke up at 5:45 and was so excited she could not get back to sleep!! Bring on the school year!

driving up the coast

After visiting Gyeongju (the old capital of the Shilla Dynasty, 57 BC - 935 AD) on Wednesday we rode up the eastern coast to Mt. Soerak (Seoraksan National Park), which is at the northern tip of South Korea and borders North Korea.

We started off the day at a local bakery to buy some Gyeongju Bang, which are little barley pancakes filled with bean. Delicious.

The drive took us along the East Sea, where we stopped at a beach and put our feet in. The waves splashed a little higher than we thought so we got a bit wet! And, we also stopped a rest area and the girls got an ice cream!

Then we stopped at a local seaside restaurant for some traditional korean soup. We sat on the floor at the little tables. The girls ate the noodles from a noodle soup. While the woman gave the girls a fork to use, they made it through the meal with just the chopsticks. Korean chopsticks are metal and rounded at the bottom, so they took a little getting used to. Im used to the wooden chopsticks that are more square at the bottom. They seem heavier and slipperier. The woman who owns the restaurant went out to her garden and picked fresh tomatoes for us to eat. She also said the girls were "beautiful" and "well behaved". Of course all of this was said in Korean but that is what our friend Miyoun told us she said.

For the most part we took the Asian Highway north, and periodically we would see the signs for Russia & China. Partway through the drive Scott took over as driver, so he is now quite proficient at reading road directions in Korean. haha. Actually we have learned the korean script for a few very important words (men/women - for the bathrooms!). haha.

Gyeongju roadtrip

What a great day today. We rented bikes at the train station and rode around Gyeonju, checking out the historical relics of the Shilla dynasty, which ruled Korea from here from 57 BC to 935 AD. This was the first major dynasty in Korea, we already checked out the third and last, and we'll get to the second when we get back to Seoul.

Bee rode with Angie on a mini tandem and loved it. Frankie rode on a child seat behind me. Next vacation, we do all-tandem.

The Shilla buried their royalty in pyrimid-like mounds, which are now all over Gyeonju. I figure you've really made it in the "Dead King" category if people are still mowing the lawn on your mound 1000 years after you die.

The best part of the old stuff was the Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory (below). It consists of 366 stones, one for each day of the year, 12 stones at the base, one for each month, and 30 levels, one for each day of the month. Not sure what observations could be done here, but...



Then it was the Children's museum, where B&F (with some help) did some archaeology, by putting together the urn puzzle below. It was especially hard because kids kept trying to touch Frankie's blonde hair the whole time we were doing the puzzle.

For dinner we tried to go to the Terrace, which was just next door to the place we went to the night before. Unfortunately, the Terrace had new owners, and only served dishes containing abalone (!) but the owner directed us to the "Spoon and Chopsticks", a Korean restaurant that definitely did not cater to tourists- no English in sight, but lots of great food.

Bee and Frankie didn't eat as much as we did, so we treated them to Isaac Toast, where they made the grilled cheeses right on the street in front of us...