Monday: World Cup Stadium parks

With his class tomorrow, and planning to go to Dobongsan on Wednesday, I figured today might be the last day for a few weeks to take August on a completely random haven’t-been-there-before adventure, as we’ll mainly be visiting places we’ve already been with Chuck and Cherie. So I decided to make a long trek across the city to check out some of the other parks across the city in the World Cup Stadium area.

And it was definitely a trek. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there, as we took busses to try to avoid the morning rush hour packed trains. But that meant we also hit Monday morning traffic, which is the worst day of the week.

Anyway, August did really well on the trek. I took 3 books along, and that definitely helped. And we transferred twice, which actually helps as well as he gets a break.

We made it to World Cup Stadium and first went to Pyounghwa Park across the street. We walked around the large pond to the big playground. We ate, then he played. He did his usual stealing of my portion of the sandwich, literally saying “Dada’s sandoo” and then taking it.

At the playground he played in the sand a lot. There were two older boys playing with the water faucets, making a stream in the sand. I had to keep August away as he kept wanting to throw sand or water in their direction. He then made a game of throwing the shovel off the picnic platforms. After I changed him he got into following the pigeons. A couple of pigeons went up a rock embankment, so then August was really trying to climb. We ended up walking around on the dirt to follow them. He is pretty calm about it, and doesn’t try to chase them (yet), although he sees other kids chase them all the time. He was walking around barefoot as his shoes were back on the backpack drying.

Before we left, he really got into drawing with the chalk on the chalkboards that were next to the platforms. He spent at least 10 minutes on it. Ironically, he stayed on the chalkboard, whereas at home he will draw on the floor after about 10 seconds.

He had now been awake for more than 5 and a half hours, so we started walking. As we left the park, he was saying ‘bye bye dulgi (pigeons)’ and he quickly fell asleep. Found a quiet cafe and got a lemonade. But he woke up after 20 minutes. Quickly packed up and headed out, and thought he fell back to sleep. But as soon as I started looking around for a bench, his head was back up.

So we walked up the 300 steps and a hill to the top of Haneul Park. This is the other hill (the east one) that used to be a landfill and now has a park on top. Last year, we went to the top of the other hill, Noeul Park (that’s where we almost touched a spider).

We spent a lot of time at a circular observation building. He really liked climbing up and down the stairs and waving at people. At one point, a couple walked down across from us and they had a little radio blasting (a common occurrence here in Korea). I said ‘Seriously?’ to myself, and August picked up on it. After we walked to the top, we went back to the same spot, and August started saying ‘Seriously? Seriously?’ He then said it a lot more through the day.

We then walked across the park, headed west. We stopped at a little bridge and he played around. The bridge was sort of a ramp, so he would go back and forth on it. He was carrying Camel in one hand, so when he came down Camel was flapping in the wind. He also stopped to wave to the butterflies (nah-be).

Our other stop in the park was a cool sculpture/enclosure that shades some stone benches. We ate a snack here and he played a bit with the bushes and waved to the women meeting there.

We walked around the west end of the park and stopped to refill our water. I then put him in the backpack and walked down the road and out of the park. We walked through Nanjicheon Park, where we had started our adventure last year by having a picnic in the grass near the playground, and where this year we got to admire the flowers and watch some butterflies.

We made it to World Cup Stadium subway station and headed home. Scored two seats together on the subway, and it only took an hour to get back to Hagye Station. He sat most of the way, although sat on my lap for part of it. Made it with the help of Cheerios, the three books, and then playing some Nighty Night and Endless Alphabet on the iPad. The last couple minutes, before our transfer, he started to want down from the seat. Put him in the back pack at the station and he was in that for the last two stops on line 7.

Got home a just a few minutes after Carly. He was really talkative in the evening. He kept saying two mystery words, which I got both of on video, but we had no idea what he was saying. Seemed very intentional though.

During dinner, Carly spilled yogurt on the floor, which seems to have been foreshadowing what was to come. After his dinner, Carly gave him a bath, and he got really upset – more than he’s cried in some time. It got worse when she was putting his diaper on, to the point where he threw up, which only upset him more. Two more throw ups and she managed to get him calmed down and to sleep at 6:30. Very unusual experience for him.

New words/phrases: diaper, brush your teeth (held his toothbrush out to me and said it), cabbage (caboo), Cookie Monster, seriously, Dr. Seuss (how he requests Hop on Pop)