Party Time

Today we went to a 1st Birthday Party. 1st birthdays are always a big deal in Korea and Korean families always put a lot of effort into organising a party. In the past a 1st birthday was a great milestone for a child because not all children would survive until their 1st birthday and when they did it was reason to celebrate. Friends of ours, although they're not Korean, decided they would throw their son, Miles, a Korean style 1st birthday party. Laura, Tyler and Miles were dressed in traditional Korean hanboks and they had put a lot of thought and effort into decorating the venue. They had the traditional Korean 'ceremony' where a few objects are placed in front of the baby. Each object has a symbolic meaning and is supposed to represent what the child will be in the future. So if the child picks a pencil then the child will grow up to be a scholar. If the child picks money, then he will be wealthy. Of course, everyone wants their child to pick the money. Miles showed little interest in the money (or anything else on the tray) until someone slyly exchanged the note for a bank card and after a bit of coaxing and waving the shiny card in his face, Miles picked the bank card. Yay! It was good fun!

Walking along the Han

We decided to go for a brisk early morning walk along the Han River today. Storm was in her element. I stopped to eat my breakfast (a scone purchased from Paris Baguette and coffee) while Brad and Storm wandered around the rocks for a while.

Unfortunately, we seldomly see a clear day in Seoul. There's always a haze in the air.

Korean names

I never thought that my name was possible to get mixed up with a Korean name, Bradley (David) Simpson is not particulary Korean, and when I arrived I found out that my Korean name was BD Shim.

The most common surnames in Korea are:
Kim
Kang
Lee
Song
Kwon
Choi
Park

With Kim and Lee probably the most common. There are a few others but these are the most common.

Today was interesting as last week I had to pay for a function and today I was e-mailed saying that they have still not received the payment. I asked them to recheck and they came back to say they found my payment, it had been shown under...

Brad Lee

And surprisingly they had a person also with that name.

My sisters baby

Hi, My sister gave birth yesterday to her baby, a boy. At the moment I have to call it, "it" as it has no name, but soon it will be named, probably by tomorrow.

This is the only picture I have at the moment.

Amcham Ball

On Saturday night Brad and I attended the American Chamber of Commerce Ball held at the Grand Hyatt. Citibank had invited us. The theme was New Orleans so everything had a jazz or Mardi Gras theme.

The tables had mannequins standing on them in Mardi Gras outfits, there were also beads and masks on the tables for everyone to wear.

There was a jazz band, lots of wine and great food. The first course was a seafood salad( Brad had to fish the prawns out of it), the second course was a Pumkin, blackbean and prawn soup (Brad didn't dare eat it but it was delicious), next came a peppered steak with polenta and vegetables and finally we had chocolate mousse with rasberry sauce. All the money raised at the ball goes to charity, so there were lots of raffles, a silent auction and a live auction. We put in a bid for the silent auction but we didn't win (we bid for a trip to Jeju). We also bought some raffle tickets but unfortunately didn't win anything with those either. We danced, drank and chatted the night away and before we knew it, it was time to go home. As we were leaving, Brad said he felt the need for McDonalds (even after all that food) and as we stepped out of the ballroom we saw a whole lot of food laid out on various tables. There was a hotdog stand, a table full of salmon sandwiches and a dessert table. So we stopped to snack with all the other people who had the munchies and then we finally went on our way. It was a great night, we had lots of fun.

Heating

This last week has been unbelievably cold, with lows around -12c and highs about -5c (excluding wind chill which adds a good few degrees lower) for most of the week. The whole winter our heating in the house has been perfect, a comfortable 24c inside, but this week our heating decided to give us a few problems, so in the coldest week of winter, it has stopped working.

I've played with all the buttons on the control pannel, hoping to figure something out but so far no luck, so it's extra clothing to bed and heavy jackets inside until we can figure out what is wrong.

Mountain Climbing

Today is Lunar New Year. We thought it would be a good day to take Storm and go for a hike up the mountain near Songbukdong. Usually there are lots of people hiking and we wouldn't be able to let Storm off her leash but today it was quiet and Storm was able to bolt up the mountain freely. We packed a lunch - some tuna sandwiches, ramen (like two-minute noodles), Pringles, Powerade and coffee - and off we all went. The walk up the mountain was shorter than expected and we really didn't need all the food that we'd taken but it was nice to stand at the viewpoint and look out over the city. There was an icy breeze blowing and we were glad to have gloves and beanies to keep us warm.

We decided to have lunch once we'd walked back down the mountain so we found a spot and had our picnic.

Storm had a marvellous time and exhausted herself. I think she was glad to get back into the warm car and she slept most of the way home.