Category: Uncategorized

On Tuesday, August and I headed downtown to walk all 5 or 6 miles of Cheonggyecheon stream. And to try out a little time lapse video. So I held the phone for the entire walk, and came up with this. The iPhone only made it 26 seconds long, and it screwed up the last 10% or so of the walk, but it is stil pretty cool:

The time lapse of August then crossing the river actually turned out nicer:

Between walking the stream and crossing the river to head home, we hung out in the grass for a good hour and a half. August had a blast:

Playing in the grass:

Eating banana:

Hitting me:

Playing with the cord:

Grabbing the grass:

Looking at the sculptures:

Back home in the evening, he had fun playing with mom:

We walked to the top of a hill/park that is on the way to APIS. Since that didn’t happen until the afternoon, we had a lot of fun at home first:

This was the military installation at the top of the hill:

Someone mentioned that there weren’t any photos yet of August in his sleep sack. So here you go:

Stuffed with banana:

On Saturday we went to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art with our friend Meg, after which we briefly visited the temple that August and I had gone to on Friday. 

On Sunday we went to an Indian restaurant in Hoegi for the going away dinner for a staff member at APIS. We got down there early so we could get coffee at a nice coffee shop and walk around the nearby university.

 

Saturday: 

Some banana in the morning: 

Playing with Meg on the way to the museum:

Resting at the museum:

There was some sort of service occurring at the temple. It was a nice place to be as the sun set:

He was in fine form on the bus, entertaining everyone with his hyperactivity. When he felt like not enough people were paying attention to him he would make more noise:

Sunday:

He got to try the hollow pacifier thing. We squished banana into it and let him at it:

In the morning I went to Costco, while Carly planned to take August to Home Plus. He fell asleep though, and they were just leaving as I got back to the building. I had to take a photo of his outfit:

in Hoegi we got coffee and walked around. There are a lot of murals on the side streets. Here are a few of them:

Sourh Korea loves the Little Prince. You find references to it everywhere:

This was where we changed August at Kyunghee University. We have found a lot of nice places outdoors to change him. This task is going to get much more difficult when the weather gets colder:

And at the Indian restaurant he got to sit in a high chair again:

In the morning:

Then we headed downtown for both the Hi Seoul festival and a celebration of the holiday, Foundation Day.

But first we explored the city hall building, which has an archeological exhibit: 

And we found another great changing table. This one plays “It’s a Small World”:

We then went to the Hi Seoul lounge and watched a guitar player. August was very attentive:

We then went outside and enjoyed the festival:

The Foundation Day celebration included everything from traditional flute playing to cheerleading:

We took a break from the noise and crowds by sitting on the grass just north of the King Sejong statue in Gwanghwamun Square. It looks peaceful, but it is kind of the equivalent to just sitting down in the middle of Time Square (if there was a patch of grass). It is pretty much the exact center of everything in Seoul. Palace, Bukhansan National Park, and the Blue House (equivalent to he White House) directly north, American embassy to the east, ginormous performing hall to the west, and city hall and Namdaemun Gate (National Treasure #1) directly to the south. Hundreds of people are walking by and taking their picture with the palace/Blue House/mountain in the background. You plop a blue-eyed baby on the grass in the middle of that and you draw attention. And then he was waving a balloon, peeling a banana, and eating a banana, which only drew more attention. So August met a lot of peoe and had his photo taken several times. 

As if that wasn’t enough, we still hand time to check out the big Buddhist temple in downtown Seoul. August slept through all of this:

His was given to us at the Hi Seoul festival on Friday. Made it home with us and has continued to be a toy. 

Starting to play with two toys together…

Some highlights of our morning. August played with the rope some more:

And watched the washing machine:

We then went to Home Plus for groceries. The highlight of the trip, if you can call it that, was August managing to take off and lose one of his socks. In fact, I took this photo in the park on the way home. I didn’t notice the missing sock on his right foot. You can just barely see the yellow of the sock that is still on his left foot:

By the time we were home, August had been awake for over 3 hours and was tired. However, after some milk and a few stories, he decided to be hyper and silly for the next 40 minutes. Good times:

After he woke up, we had some more play time. Here he is being funny in the bouncy chair:

Carly had a professional development day, so I went to PT an hour later than normal. It is cooling down, so you will notice long sleeves, socks, and longer pants creeping into his outfit. Here was his basic outfit today (sans socks):

No photos of it (for obvious reasons), but the most dramatic thing to happen today was that, as we were walking across the bridge over the river, a bus barreling over the bridge hit a huge puddle and soaked is pretty good. Actually, there was a woman walking the other way that got it much worse, but it was still quite a bit. Despite the splash of cold water (and me and the woman both emitting cries of shock/anger), August didn’t cry. We got to walk and talk with the woman for the next few minutes as she headed back to her apartment to change. So there was at least that. 

 

In in the evening, Carly fed him some apple sauce: