Children's Day, etc.

Children’s Day was a family happening.  May rose early, as she always does, and prepared a wonderful picnic lunch.  She’s a very good cook.  All went well, a nice quiet morning.  Then, just before we were to head to the stadium to meet a friend and her baby and enjoy the day, the girls had a fight.  We almost didn’t leave the house, but time and some tense negotiations settled them down and thanks to cell phones, we were able to renegotiate the time of meeting at the subway station.  When we finally got to the enormous stadium where the event was to take place, Jay was starving.  We set down our picnic blankets with the rest of the Koreans on whatever shaded patch of grass/sand we could find at the entrance.  After a great lunch, we were fueled for a walk.  There was a baseball game playing the whole time and the noise of the cheering fans was the loudest I’ve ever heard.  We walked around the baseball stadium and up a hill to a beautiful park area that overlooked a huge soccer stadium and track; it was almost deserted.  Koreans don’t like to be alone.  We spent quite a bit of time there just relaxing.  We then walked back by a different route.  We passed the largest climbing wall set up I’ve ever seen and some crazy kids’ games and then went back to the subway.  At this point I became aware of the most essential part of Children’s Day, presents for the kids.  In Korea, it’s bigger than Christmas for that.  This gave rise to the second bit of sibling difficulty.  It was finally settled, not to everyone’s satisfaction, with Jin-Hee getting roller blades and Min-Hee a promise of something she really wanted another time.  I haven’t been living with two young girls since I spent the month of February last year in Hawaii with the Pollack/Shepherd gang.  The level of energy is quite something.  It’s wonderfully invigorating, but I think that one month a year might be enough to keep my batteries charged.  I’m enjoying living with Jay and May, though, because their routines and those of the girls are mixed up, which mean that I have time alone with each and with all together.  I also have a few hours alone every day when I can walk in the hills nearby and read and write. 

Jay and I spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with his boss and his wife and a friend from work.  We drove south and west of Incheon, along the coast to a peninsula, actually an island separated from the mainland by a bridge, to a small fishing village called Anmyeondo.  Dave, Jay’s boss had rented a suite in a cottage-like pension.  It was beautiful and spacious.  The first night we spent on the beach, walking way out because the tide was out.  The moon was full and bright orange.  The next day we visited the harbor and the huge fish market and had a seafood feast for lunch.  We had bought groceries and barbecued both nights on the deck outside our suite.  We also went to a go-cart place where all but I had a wild time.  Jay’s crazy colleague from Chicago took a corner at full throttle and flew off the track into the field.  Fortunately she was fine, but she gave us all a scare, especially the guy who ran the place.  We followed this with a quieter venue, chosen with me in mind, a tulip festival.  It was well worth the trip.

Before the girls get home, I’m going to go for a walk past the community gardens that fill every spare patch of earth around the mountain and then up the mountain.  I’m going to take the girls to dinner if they want to go because Jay and May both work late today.  

Min-Hee, May, Jin-Hee and Jay in the subway going to Children's Day at the stadium

The same gang with the Irish friend Nathalie and her baby, unfortunately hidden behind a toy, at the stadium

The well dressed Go-Cart manager with Laurie, Dave and Jay

Jay on the track

The fishing port on the West Sea

Some of the thousands of fish for sale

Laurie, Dave, Jo and Jay at the tulip festival

Posing in the rapeseed, or as it's now known, canola.  This wonderful plant lined the roads in the area where we were and gave off a delicate scent that permeated the air we drove through

The Wednesday market as seen from Jay's balcony

Pottery birds on bamboo poles in an area near Jay's apartment at the base of the mountain, where the community gardens are.  They are part of a much larger display that surrounds a pottery studio.