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.