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We got a nice jump on the day as it was going to get hot. So we were down to CGP by 9 to give us some cooler time in the park. We went in the back entrance, and first August got down and walked/played by the statue of an American soldier. 

We then walked into the park proper and walked some paths in the southeast part of the park we had never been on. We’ve now probably covered 95% of the park…

He was falling asleep for an early nap and was asleep by the time I got to Peace Coffee right at 10. I ordered a drink, and walked outside to claim the one empty table. As I was mere feet from the table, a group of teenage boys came up the stairs and ran past me to claim the table, yelling and literally bumping into me. And waking up August. I yelled at them, but they just stared at me. August wasn’t going back to sleep, so I got my drink, left, and threw away the drink.

We went to the children’s museum. He played well, if a little tired, in the water area, then we had lunch. I changed him, and he fell asleep again. It was now 11:30 and I returned to the cafe. The tables outside were still taken by boys – whether the same ones or different, I wasn’t sure – and they were laying on the tables under the umbrellas, taking naps. Can’t blame them too much, as they were on a field trip, left alone by their teachers to work on some writing assignment (when they left the area was trashed, and they’d left s lot of their worksheet behind). So they behaved pretty much how you would expect. 

But there was a nice table available inside, so I sat there and read War Trash while August slept for the next hour. 

When he woke up we went to the children’s zoo. August was more interested in going in the tropical animal building and playing with the humidifiers. From there he really wanted to play with water, so we went to a set of faucets I had seen earlier by the walking course. He played there quite awhile, playing both with a rock under the water and a plastic coffee lid under the water. 

When he started to slow (15 to 20 minutes) we headed towards the front of the park to see if the floor fountain by the water education center was on. It wasn’t when we got there, but would be at 2, in a few minutes. So we went inside the water education center.

We played with some of the displays – particularly one in which you push buttons to produce bubbles – but August was most fascinated by the ball pit (no, I have no idea why they have a ball pit in a water education facility). Buy you had to be 5 to go inside. 

So we went outside. The fountain was on, but he wasn’t interested as he was still asking for the ball pit. So we went around the corner and back to the children’s museum and to the ball room there. He did something odd at this point, as he insisted on climbing over the little barrier and getting in with the ball tubes. A tight fit. He spent 15+ minutes in there. Playing a little, but also just watching other people in the room. 

When he got out, we wandered to exhibits on the first floor we hadn’t played with before. He was just tall enough to play with all of the tables in the light room. He also played in the design room, where you could put colored cotton balls into a design grid on the wall, and use magnetic strips on the floor to create a pattern or picture. He would play at one location for a couple minutes, wander off still holding a piece, find a new location, set down the piece, etc. I kept returning pieces to their rightful locations as we walked past the previous exhibits. 

The best moment was when he was wandering around the middle of a room, holding a magnetic strip in each hand. He spotted someone and started waving with both hands, flapping the magnetic strips. He then continued to wander around the room, and spotted himself in the mirror. I got the second half of that on video.

Made it home without incident and a pretty normal evening. 

 

Looking up up at the statue: 

Making bubbles: 

Light bars: 

Silliness: 

First, August definitely has two new words he can say: dizzy and squeeze. I think I mentioned ‘dizzy’ the other day, but didn’t know if it would stick as a word. It has. And today he started saying ‘squeeze’ and I would squeeze him and Carly in a hug. 

After our long day yesterday, and with a trip to CGP tomorrow, we stayed more local today. I gave him a bath this morning and we played a lot and made a smoothie, and around 11 we went out for a walk. We walked north along the stream, stopping to watch the water at a bridge, and reached the fake stream up past the traffic safety park. The fake stream is a little stream that starts at a waterfall in the wall, flows for 30 or 40 meters, goes under a foot bridge, and flows into the real stream. 

We played for an hour or so. He first threw rocks into the stream and I would fish them out and hand them back. Then we saw a leaf floating down the stream, so we started throwing in leaves and weeds and following them down the current. Finally, he became more interested in the wall and all the old flower petals at the base of it and played in those. We had a snack and he was getting tired, so we headed home. But not before some guy decided it would be fun to come up and try to put his sunglasses on August. Neither August nor I was amused. 

He fell asleep soon after we got home, but only slept 45 minutes or so. He wanted to sleep more on my shoulder, but I’m trying to get him to do less of that. We lay on the bed for awhile and he calmed down, but then woke up fully. 

After some late lunch, we went for a second walk. With only an hour until Carly was to get home we didn’t go far. So I made it an August walk. We ended up exploring part of the first floor here in the building (in particular he likes a twirly thing outside a cell phone store and a window display in a clothing store across from it – the display has rocks in the bottom and stuffed rabbits) and then going to the pink building. In the pink building we walked around the grocery store and then went down the stairs to both floors of the parking garage. On our way back up we bought a pineapple and a couple other things from the grocery store. 

We ran into Carly as we went back into our building. Once back at the apartment I turned around and went to physical therapy. I had planned for next week to be my last visit, but Hyunjoo informed me she was moving and that this was her last week. So, suddenly this became my last week. 

In the evening August got the coffee maker out of a cupboard and played with it intently for about twenty minutes. He also figured out how to stick his crayons on his big toe. Oh, and he’s been doing this thing where when he recognizes something in a book, he will point to the same item in the house. He primarily does this with his visual dictionary where he will point to his real drum when he sees the drum in the book, to a real ball when he sees the ball, etc. this evening with Blue Bus, Red Balloon he was pointing towards a balloon, and then down the hall for both ‘bird’ and ‘girl’. 

He managed to stay up until past 9. It was a third attempt is a charm sort of evening. 

Today’s outfit:

Fake stream: 

Spotting fans on out August walk. I can tell this is going to be a popular activity through the coming months: 

Evening: 

We ‘finished’ the Fortress Trail today in that we walked the last third of it and ended up back where we started it (and August got to play in the water there again). 

Today was the first time August petted a dog and also the first time he drank out of a water fountain. He also started saying the word ‘dig’ when we played in the sand. 

We actually started by walking part of section 4 of the trail. To fully finish the trail we will have to do an out-and-back to as much of sections 3 and 4, since we were thwarted in trying to do that entire section. To limit how long that out-and-back is, and since sections 5 and 6 were some of the easiest part of the trail, we also threw in part of section. 

Before getting to the trail we had to walk through part of Hyehwa. While doing that we followed the little (fake) stream along the sidewalk (he loved this – he is all about water, and when we left the house he was pointing at everything, especially grates on the street, and saying ‘wawa’) and popped into one art gallery I didn’t know existed. 

After taking one more bus we started in Walyong Park. This is where he pet a little dog (and mainly used my hand to pet the dog) and he also had a blast playing with a dustbin. He loves seeing people use brooms, and also likes the dustbins they use, so this was very exciting. 

We started the walk from there. We stopped at a playground to swing, at a little park with a broken water spout, then at a gate to admire the ceiling, then at a recycling yard to watch the big claw, then at a bench to have some food and water. He then fell asleep, and I walked for the next hour, getting to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza before he woke up. 

We stopped at a bench outside there to play and eat and drink, then went inside the DDP to refill our water bottles. 

We ended up at Jangchungdan Park and first played in the water and then the sand. His is where he drank from the fountain. Then, as we played in the sand he said ‘dig’ several times. And at one point he crawled into my lap and kept playing in the sand. 

We took the subway and bus home. He had four middle school girls to entertain/be entertained by on the subway, so that went smoothly. He was really hamming it up for them. At one point he took a bite of banana bread out of his mouth, set it on my hand, then grabbed my hand and pulled it to his mouth and ate the banana bread. 

Got home a few minutes after 5:30. Soon thereafter got a message from Derek that he and Logan were down in the park. So we all went down there and hung out with them for awhile. We then went across to the other side of the park. Carly stayed with August and he played in the garden planters (he loved the potting soil) while I got a few groceries. 

Staring at the fountain/stream in Hyehwa: 

Walyong Park: 

One wall photo for you today: 

Looking at the painted ceiling: 

Waking up: 

Jangchungdan Park: 

Playing with Logan: 

 

August slept late – until 9:25 – which was good, but the last two and a half hours was with him in my arms as he was rather restless with a stuffy nose. 

When he did wake up and we had breakfast, we hopped a bus to eMart and got his prescriptions. We then went to the playground near eMart and played in the sand for awhile and took his medicines. 

Since it was Buddha’s Birthday, we took the subway up to Dobongsan and Bukhansan National Park to visit a couple of the temples and see what was going on. 

He fell asleep soon after we got to the park, and I found a nice napping spot near a temple. I sat on the edge of what used to be an old (and probably very cold) swimming pool built into a stream that has now been filled in. I got a lot more reading done and even napped myself for a few minutes with August laying on my chest. The only negative was when a woman came over and literally started pulling and shaking his arm. I had to push her arm away and shoo her away. 

He slept for 110 minutes, after which he played with the leaves and rocks, he ate lunch, and he played some more. 

We then walked up to a temple and looked around. August really liked all of the lanterns and other decorations. 

We then headed back down the hill, stopping to refill out water bottles at a spring. 

Finally, we visited the temple near the entrance to the park. We watched a few minutes of some Buddhist chanting and music. A really nice woman gave us some dok (a rice pastry thing) and then the women selling small paper lanterns gave August an orange lantern. I tried to pay, but they wouldn’t accept my money. 

We then headed home after a peek into the iris garden and changing him in the station. 

We got home late – a little after 5:30. He had a lot of fun playing this evening. We used a sheet like the parachute from his class – it was pretty clear he was remembering the class as he raised and lowered the sheet and looked under it the same way he would in class. 

We played a little Endless Alphabet for the first time in several days and he really liked ‘dizzy’. He can say it quite well. We will see if it quickly becomes one of his words. 

Playground: 

Nap spot: 

Temples: 

August really liked the white lanterns. I think because they were at his height and he could see the wind move them and their petals: 

August has had periods of doing better today, but not with sleep, waking up every hour or so and having difficulty getting to sleep. 

Still, he was outside three times today. First, Carly took him out this morning on a walk by the stream. Then I took him out around noon in an attempt to find a pharmacy with whatever the doctor prescribed. Later, we all went for a a walk up the stream and to the playground by the youth center. 

When he had the energy he has made the most of his playing. So he had a lot of fun at both playgrounds. His hoarse little voice is also quite cute, if very sad. 

Park behind the hospital: 

Back at home: 

Evening walk: 

 

We were going to go to the Iris Garden for my birthday, and in the morning it looked like that might still happen. But then when it came time for him to take a nap he just wouldn’t really sleep deeply and spent much of the day clutching to Carly. 

At one point he was up enough to Skype with my parents. Sort of. After that, his temperature was up around 39. We tried to take him to the doctor, but they closed at 1. 

After a couple more hours of him not doing much of anything, we found out from Derek that the doctor over at eMart is open longer hours on the weekend. We had given him Tylenol by this point, but the cough and throwing up were concerning. 

So we took a cab to eMart. By the time we got there the Tylenol had kicked in and he was having fun in the waiting room – particularly because they had Pororo playing on a couple screens. 

The diagnosis is a throat infection. He was doing quite well at this point and the weather was lovely, so we walked home. We stopped at the pink building for groceries and then got pho takeout for dinner. 

He was a bit better this evening, but unfortunately getting to sleep is really difficult for him. He finally went to sleep around 9:30, but woke up 45 minutes later. He is just now asleep again and hopefully he can get a good night’s sleep. 

 

Sick boy: 

Feeling better and watching Pororo, but a crazy cough: 

Walking home: 

He doesn’t really show off his letter skills in these videos, but you can see his Pororo magnets: 

 

August slept twelve hours and seemed to be doing fine this morning. A happy wake up, and we were ready to leave the house a little past ten to go to Home Plus and then Dream Forest, where we would play in the wading pool and fountain. After that we were to meet Carly and go to a little family social gathering at a playground. 

But then I went to change him to leave. As soon as I picked him up he put his head on my shoulder. Then he looked like he was falling asleep on the changing pad. So instead of leaving I picked him up and got him to sleep for a nap. 

I knew something was off. He had a bit of a cough last night, but it wasn’t too bad. But he had just fallen asleep after only two hours. And he continued to sleep. Over two hours and 45 minutes. He woke up with a temperature of 38.6. 

So, original plans aside, we did manage to go to Home Plus for a few things. Before that we went to the art museum to see their new exhibit. At Home Plus we bought him a soccer ball.

We stopped at the park on the way home and played. He was mellow though, and really leaned back on me when we were on the swings. He played with the soccer ball, but then started to get quiet. We headed home and he fell asleep again before 4:30. 

He slept 50 minutes and woke up for awhile. After that he slept most of the evening, having one other wake up period for about 45 minutes. 

Park: 

Second nap: 

Groggy after waking up: 

Making noise with the water bottle: 

August slept for 12 hours last night, and when he woke up this morning it was a very happy wake up. I went in to find him playing with GG, the giraffe, making her hop. 

We headed down to Children’s Grand Park early, getting there at 9:30. So we walked around a bit first, checking on the wading pools, but they aren’t yet open for the season. 

He then walked on his own into the Children’s Museum, to the ticket counter, and into the museum proper. I then let him choose which direction to go and we ended up in the ball room for the first time. We played there for a half hour then went up to the water area. 

At 11 we went to the lunch room and ate. We had the room to ourself, and he had fun playing under and around the table. He was looking tired, and fell asleep soon after we left the building. I think walking out into the bright sun helps, as he puts his head down and is less tempted to look around at everything. 

He slept for 80 minutes, during which I read a big chunk of my book (War Trash) as we sat out on the deck. 

After he woke up we went first to the water birds, then the children’s zoo, where he once again played in the water by the horses. 

We then went out the back of the zoo and spent as much time as he wanted playing in the drinking fountain. 

He then walked off and led the way. We went past the Pororo mural, then he wanted to be picked up. He directed me towards the amusement park, where we watched people on rides and found a bathroom in which to change him. 

We left through the back entrance of the park, and took a slightly different subway route home. 

At home, I have him a bath. I got him to stand in the bath with me and he did really well, playing in the bath again.

Carly for home at 5, and we went to the APIS staff appreciation dinner at Celllan in the museum building across the street. 

We got seats on an end, and kind of had a whole area just for August to walk around, out of the way. On the wall were huge pictures of strawberries and broccoli, which he loved. During the dinner he had shrimp for the first time and loved it. Near the end we went out on the roof and he walked around and played out there. 

He was pretty exhausted when we came home around 8:30 and fell asleep pretty quickly. 

Ball room: 

Lunch: 

Peace Coffee:

Zoo: 

Bathrobe: 

Dinner: 

Oh, and he also took bites off a fork for the first time, as I fed him shrimp: 

August woke up before 6, so we stayed home until he took a nap. In the morning we blew up a bunch of balloons and played with them. We also got out all of the letter and number Pororo magnets and put them on the closet door. 

He took an hour-long nap, after which we had some lunch and headed out. We found a bus that took us down to Sinnae Park. August and I were here once before, in the fall, when we walked to the top of the hill and saw the old signal fire location. Today, however, we were there for the playgrounds and, as luck would have it, the fountain. 

We first played at a playground, where he primarily walked around and played with out tennis ball.

When the fountain came on at 1 we moved over there. He watched it for awhile, then for close and touched it a bit, but backed off after putting his hand in one of the jets. 

Instead, he wanted to play in the nearby drinking fountain/taps. One even had a short hose on it that he could use.

After playing with that for awhile we ate again. He would go back and forth between eating, watching the fountain, playing in the water, and walking around. 

When it shut off at 2 we went walking again. He was startled by a landscaping crew that started a hedge trimmer, but then wanted to watch. 

From there we headed up the hill a bit and found another playground, where he mainly practiced steps, then a pond full of tadpoles. This is where I learned that he knew that gaeguli and frog mean the same thing, as when I said ‘That’s a baby frog’ he said ‘Gaeguli!’ Then a man came up and taught us that the korean word for ‘tadpole’ is ‘olchaengi’. 

We took our time following the little stream back down the hill to the fountain. We played with it more, primarily with him in the carrier.  He would use my hand to make me touch the water. After several minutes of this I let him down and he stood closer to the fountain again. It turned off only a couple minutes after that. After making the ‘more’ sign a few times he then had fun walking around the empty fountain, expecting its surface. 

We went and caught the bus home. I had hoped he would last until home, but he fell asleep on the bus. He woke up when we got home, a 35 minute nap. 

Carly came home and I went to PT. Only 2 more sessions before the start of summer. 

While I was gone they went for a walk in the park and to the grocery store in the pink building. 

Before he fell asleep, he was having laugh and cuddle time on the couch with Carly. She would say and sign ‘I love you’, and he would laugh when she pointed to him. He started pointing to himself at the same time she would. 

He fell asleep a little after 7. That is fine – an early wake up will make it easier for us to head down to CGP nice and early. In addition to our usual children’s museum, cafe, and zoo locations, I think the wading pool area might be open. So there is much we can do. 

Morning: 

Sinnae Park: 

Asleep on the bus: 

Home: 

 

August and I attempted to continue the Fortress Trail today. Alas, after a couple kilometers the wide, easy, safe path gave way to steep, craggy rocks that just weren’t safe with a baby. So we headed back down and ended up cutting a new path through part of downtown, seeing the Blue House (equivalent of the White House) for the first time.  

Also, the weather didn’t cooperate. What was forecast as an 80 and partly sunny day turned into 61 and rainy. Unfortunately, the forecast didn’t keep up, and when we left the house it was still supposed to be 70s and dry. 

In the morning August stole a piece of toast from me off the counter. I walked into the kitchen a few seconds after him to find him eating it like a squirrel. He was very happy with himself and thought it was quite funny. 

We left the house at 8:30 and traveled to Dongnimmun Station. We played at Seodaemun Independence Park (water and flowers for awhile then hit the trail. After 600+ steps we turned back. As we came back down we met a soldier, Harvey, who talked to us for several minutes. The trail here goes through a military area (looking down you see into the Blue House compound, for one) and there are little outposts along the way. Apparently there were messages going over the radio among these men that a cute baby was coming up the trail. He was quite nice and we talked about what it was like to raise August in Korea. 

We headed down, changing August into long sleeves as the temperature was stuck at 61 and it was getting breezy and damp. We stopped by a construction spot where we had previously watched them loading a truck with dirt and he could see a backhoe at work. 

We then found a side path to a rest area in the first and had lunch. From there we continued down a separate path to Sajik Park. August fell asleep along the way so I went to a nice coffee shop called Pot de Miel next to the park. When he woke up we went back into the park to the playground and played. When it rained we sat in a big tube thing and ate a snack. 

From there we headed east, finding an area where we once ate pizza with some friends. We headed north, exploring new territory, walked through an in door market, and then up to the Blue House area. 

We went to the Cheongwadae Sarangchae – basically the presidential visitor center. Not too exciting, but there was an exhibit on pressed flowers that was okay. I let August walk around outside for awhile, but we got mobbed by tourists with cameras and video cameras and it got a bit weird (woman put her arm around August for a photo, big camera in his face) so we left.

We walked east, north of the palace, and saw the entrance to the Blue House (oddly, none of the tourists were actually here), then came out on the east side, walked past the MMCA, and to Insa-dong. I had planned to walk to Tapgol Park and let him play one last time, but now it was actually starting to rain. So we hopped in the subway at Anguk and transferred after a stop. 

At Seokgye we got out to transfer to the bus. It wasn’t raining and we had a few minutes so I let him walk around in the park by the stop. A woman insisted it was raining though and kept trying to give us her umbrella. There was maybe two drops in the 7 minutes we were there. I had to get pretty forceful in telling her to go away (previously I’d also had to get pretty forceful with with a woman who was complaining his arms were cold literally as I was changing him into long sleeves – both times he was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood up and it was 61 degrees). 

Anyway, pretty normal evening after that. August had fun flying on Carly’s legs, and then he got interested in trying to plug his headphones into the iPod. I told him it would probably be something that would take awhile to master. He then pretty much proceeded to prove me wrong by getting it mostly down in 10 minutes or so. 

 

Toast thief: 

Where we were trying to go: 

But had to stop about halfway up from that photo when it went like this: 

Long sleeves: 

Lunch: 

Sajik Park area:

Our shelter: 

He loved the rings. Like the handles in the subway but easier to reach: 

Playing with his hood while walking: 

Blue House: 

Our walking route for the day. Blue = before coffee, red = after: 

Home: