He was up around 6:00. When I got up and came out of the bathroom a couple minutes later, he excitedly said “Happy Birthday!” as he jumped up and down, half naked, as Carly was taking his diaper off. We walked Carly to the elevator a bit later, then took the next elevator down, sans bike or backpacks. Walked across to the park and patted the mama statue, then we spent some time throwing rocks off the wooden bridge, then he came down and got more and threw them around. He asked about animals eating rocks: “Ants eat rocks?…All animals doesn’t eat rocks?”
He then led a walk that led us across the street to the other side of the park, then through it, up to the crosswalk, then by Home Plus where we looked at all the pipes and at three bicycles locked to the fence out front. He kept trying to get on the last bike, and got upset when I wouldn’t let him. I took him across the street, back to the park, where it took him a few minutes to calm down. He kept trying to head back to Home Plus, and would do his skip/shuffle thing as he slowly went that way, then I would go get him before he could get to the parking lot.
He calmed down and found a round plastic thing that he was able to roll a bit. We were then turning on the water faucets and watching it go down the drains. We walked to our side, and he found a pink bottle on the bridge and wanted to fill it with water. As we walked to the faucets on our side, he sung “I don’t like those three people. I sucked them up with my bottle.” About people sitting on the covered benches. He filled the bottle with water and poured it out for awhile, then we headed home at 8:10.
He played with some of the random toys (plastic circle things, drumsticks, etc.) on the floor for some time, then we had oatmeal and blackberries for breakfast. He was hungry/liked it as he basically had two packs on his own. Watched Pink Panther, exercised, watched videos about oats, and I took a shower. Before I took my shower he had come in and grabbed one of his bath cups. I’d then made sure he was back on the iPad, playing something. But when I got out of the shower he came in, put the cup back in the container of toys, and said “I was playing with this cup. I was filling it with water.” He had been in Carly’s bathroom doing it.
He played with his extendo arm for awhile, then said “I want to throw this away…I’m done with it.” and we put it back in with the plastic recycling, where he had gotten it from two or three weeks ago. He then played with bottles in the sink, went to the bathroom, and I got snacks ready to go. We left around 10:15.
We walked east, winding our way through all the construction over past Home Plus. When we walked by the buddhist temple he saw the lanterns and said “I want more lanterns at gramma and grampa’s.” Walking by the construction site, we smelled a burning smell and he said “Well, I don’t like that smell.” And when he saw a lift truck he said he wanted it and “I want to lift the fake grass in Israel.”
We got to the science center about 10:50. Inside, we first admired the lockers set up like the periodic table of elements. The building itself is pretty impressive, although as a science center it was a little sterile and had some big gaps (nothing really about physics or astronomy, for example).
Before we got in to any of the exhibits we could tell that the place was still a work in progress: the escalator to the second floor was cool because you can see through the side to see how it works. However, they weren’t yet operating.
The first floor was called ‘Harmony’, and about the Han River environment. There was a binoculars thing where you pointed them at different parts of the Han River and videos played in them, some exhibits that weren’t working yet, and a promising sign: a place where you could build bridges with K’Nex and then test them to see how much weight they could hold. Well, sort of. There was a two or 3kg weight, but nothing beyond that. We played with those for a couple minutes, then he wanted to go to the next floor.
The second floor was called ‘Life’ We looked at the spectrograms (I think that’s what they’re called) of a few elements and liked the colors, and then at these kind of cool growth charts that show you how people age. He also used a microscope camera to look at his shirt and his hair and skin.
Before the next floor he found a Tayo water fountain and played with that for probably ten minutes. Third floor was ‘Network’ and had a whole section about units of measurement: length, mass, light, temperature, etc. He measured his height and arm span, then played with the weights and then the camera that shows you pixels. But by far the best part was the exhibit on brains. No real brains, but a display that charted the brain size and mass of animals, and you could guess which was which. He really liked the little tiny mouse brain.
Also on the third floor, although I think we found it on our way down, was a display on motors. You could make the jet engine go and the model of a plane would fly around a pretty cool display (there was also a train). August didn’t like the noise though, and in fact didn’t like a lot of noises in the science center, so had his fingers in his ears a lot of the time and kept saying “What you said?” when he then didn’t understand what I said.
On the fourth and final floor (‘Circulation’) there were exercise bikes that generated electricity (unfortunately, as was most everything here, only in adult sizes, so he couldn’t do it on his own). There was a moving sculpture (showing big data) that he liked. Then the best thing: a display about how they generate power from the gasses from a landfill (August and I have been to the parks on top of it). You turn a wheel and then these colorful lights go up and through the pipes. He wanted to see that over and over.
Finally on that floor was a place you could pump air into a chamber until it built up pressure, then push a button and it would release the air into tubes and force up a couple disks.
He needed to go to the bathroom, so we did that. He was amazed that everything in the bathroom (except the soap dispenser, oddly) had a sensor and he played with the faucet. We went back to the fourth floor and did the lights thing some more. Then went up to the roof, where we admired the view back towards our apartment and also looked at the flowers. The path on the roof goes in sort of a U shape, then down stairs on the other side to a different set of doors. Which was locked (they also hadn’t figure out how they were letting people in for free today: generally, to get into exhibits they have turnstile things that only open if you have a wristband. They didn’t give out wristbands, so some floors had the wheelchair doors open. Others had the turnstiles open. And at others the attendants seemed confused why they weren’t opening for you and then you had to ask them to pus their buttons. As we left, they had decided to give people wristbands, so we skipped going back in the first floor again because I didn’t want to get a wristband for two minutes). Anyway, we retraced our steps and went back in and I went and unlocked the other set of doors for the next person.
We looked each of the floors (except the first) on our way back down because he wanted to see them again. He liked the temperature sensor. On the first floor he played with the Larvae drinking fountain. I mentioned looking in the coffee shop and he said “I’m going to get coffee. Zinnie’s going to get coffee.” We looked and they had some sandwiches, but he really wanted Korean food for lunch. He played with the polished rocks in the gift shop then we got going.
Outside, there is a place where you can lift a bus by yourself using the magic of pulleys. I pulled it up as much as it will let you (the tires just barely start to get off the ground), then he was pulling on it. Oh, and he was wearing his sunglasses both going and coming back. He a
lso really liked the fountain by the entrance so we went and looked at the little stream.
On the walk home we were looking for a place to eat. I spotted a Chinese place and he changed his mind and wanted Chinese. We were the only people there, and ordered the beef fried rice (which came with a bean dark sauce thing that he really liked) and friend mandu (after they were out of two other kinds). It also came with the usual Korean sides (including kimchi that was pretty good) and a bowl of spicy soup. For less than 10 bucks. A ton of food. As we ate, the cook brought a bowl of egg drop soup out for August as the other was too spicy.
We then walked to 골마을근린공원. He got on one of the exercise machines where you swing your legs forward and back and could do it on his own (although it made me a bit nervous). Then down at the playground he went on a swing. There was dog poop under the other swing though, and he didn’t like the smell, and wanted to leave the playground after he spent a few minutes throwing rocks around.
We walked back through our park and across the rainbow bridge. At some point we saw a baby and I said something about being nice to it. He said “I don’t want to be nice at the baby. I want to be MEAN at the baby.” On our side he heard a dog barking and spotted a separate big dog. He sat on his bike backwards and watched them. He said of the big one “Stop licking. I don’t want it to lick me.” It wasn’t close to him. He then said “I want the barking one in Israel.”
We got home at 3:30. We had talked about where meat comes from at the restaurant. He decided he likes meat and now said “I’m going to buy a steak. I want to buy meat! I want to buy bubble gum ice cream!” There was a lot of talk about getting me a cake as he knew we were thinking of getting one later and couldn’t wait: “I want to buy you a cake. I want to buy a cake now because it’s dada’s birthday…” I took some time to rest, then we both worked up energy to go outside and left at 4:30.
We stopped at Juicy Juice. He got mango and I got mixed berry. We walked over to the Bye Fuzzy playground and finished our juice. He then watched some kids playing a card game, but then really wanted to join in, but we didn’t know how to play. He kept trying to grab the box and got upset when I took him away. He calmed down and ran over to the play structure. Up top he found two jump ropes tied to a post, seemingly abandoned. I was down below. A girl spotted him and she and another girl ran up to retrieve their jump ropes. August was NOT happy about this at all, and was strongly holding onto one when I got up there. I got him and took him down and talked to him. He had just calmed down enough and wanted to go back to play. He ran about 10 steps back towards the play structure and stumbled and fell on his knees, scraping his left one a bit.
When he calmed down a bit we headed home. He wanted to look at cakes at Baskin Robbins, so we did that. I realized I wasn’t too impressed by the flavors of ice cream in the cakes. We then walked down by the pink building, as it was just 5, and met Carly at the corner. Talking about cake, we walked by Mainz Dom and smelled what smelled like fresh brownies. Sadly, there was nothing so good inside. August and Carly liked the popsicles though, and I saw individual pieces of cake. So we got those in lieu of a cake. Sadly, the woman didn’t get my cake order correct and we didn’t realize until we got home and I didn’t really like one at all. The other was okay.
At home they nursed and he was falling asleep, but perked up at the mention of cake. Ate some dinner first, then had the cake and popsicle. After that he said “I want to nurse because nursing is a treat.”
Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep a bit before 7:30. Carly had him say “Happy Birthday” one more time before going to sleep.
Morning walk:
