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August woke up at 5 and was awake for an hour with Carly. She thought he might have a temperature, but not much of one. 

He woke up at 7:40 and was low energy through breakfast, but didn’t seem too off. He fell back asleep an hour later, and slept another hour until the school maintenance showed up and woke him up. 

With no fever, and with him perking up (he finds the words pee and poop really funny, and was working on his B and P sounds on the changing table), we headed towards Itaewon. He stayed awake on the bus and subway, but was very mellow. We got off the subway, and found a water faucet to play in. But when I put him down to play, he made it clear he wanted up and was tired. So I picked him up and he fell asleep. 

I walked up the hill past the Grand Hyatt hotel. Thought about getting coffee and sitting down, but a $6 latte at the Kenyan embassy made me think otherwise. So I kept walking and found a bench in Namsan Park between the children’s forest and the wild flower garden and read. 

We were to meet Derek over the the west in the HBC neighborhood at 2pm, so at 1 I got up and walked through the wild flower garden and then headed that direction. August woke up enough to look at a stream and a little fountain, but then fell back to sleep again. 

He woke up yet again when we met Derek. He stayed strapped to me through lunch and ate a decent lunch himself before falling back to sleep. The pizza was very good. 

We then headed into Itaewon and to a seafood taco place. I tried the octopus taco for him and also had an horchata. The taco was really quite good. The octopus was deep fried and you couldn’t really tell it was octopus. 

August woke up as we were leaving again and heading home. He nodded off on the train but couldn’t fully get to sleep. He made it most of the way but started to cry (but not very loudly) the last stop (the most noise he had made all day). There was a woman mumbling at me as he was fussing the last few stops and she tried to touch him twice. The second time I literally swatted her hand away as she grabbed his arm. 

As expected, he fell right asleep as we left the subway and I could get walking. We caught the bus home and ran into Carly at the elevators. 

August livened up a bit for part of the evening, but went to bed a little after 7. His fever never went much over 38, so hopefully the sleep is helping him get over whatever is bothering him. We have an open day tomorrow – making banana bread, taking a bath, that sort of thing. 

Sleeping in Namsan Park: 

Looking at the stream: 

Eating lunch: 

Octopus taco: 

Sleeping on the bus home: 

Asleep for the night: 

We headed north to Uijeongbu today. Our main goal was to finish off the gift card we haven’t been able to use anywhere except at the big department store. We failed at that, but we had fun exploring a new part of the city and a nice park behind city hall. 

On the way up, I spotted Camp Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Jackson_(Korea)), which I didn’t know existed, just a little north of Dobongsan and the iris garden. 

Up in Uijeongbu we transferred to their U line – it is basically like the monorail. As we walked from one line to the other, we had a great view into a construction site. August grabbed onto the railing and got upset if I tried to leave. We were there about 20 minutes and 4 missed trains before he was happy to move along. 

We headed three stops west and got out at city hall. There is a big park area behind it. We first played at a playground, where he played in a drinking fountain and was a bit afraid of a blue toy he had never seen before, then walked through the park and found the sculpture garden/pond/fountain. 

We watched for awhile then headed to the end of the park, finishing out that their ‘X Games’ skate park was just a dinky little skate park. And a little wading fountain, which would have been awesome, was off. 

But we went back to the fountain and had a lot of fun there for the next hour and a half. He ate, watched the fountain, threw rocks in the grate and his hat, and spotted a helicopter. I also made a little song using his name, and at the end he would point to himself. 

I changed him on the grass on the other side of a rope fence from my back pack. His diaper broke and I couldn’t reach a new one, so I did the best I could with it. I put him in the carrier and it seemed fine, and he fell right asleep. 

He slept for an hour, and in that time I walked to the department store and to a seating area on the roof, listening to podcasts. 

He woke up and we spent quite awhile playing around on the roof and eating lunch. He played under the table, spotted our reflections in the window, and led me through the hedge maze by my finger (there is a sheep sculpture in the middle, so that was exciting for him). I carried him around the rest of the roof – through the tree house and over past a scary sculpture that is out of place on the roof – and he finished by playing with the water bottle around some flowering trees. 

Then we headed down a floor to the toy store. I noticed that his diaper was starting to stick out of the top of his pants. He as having fun walking among the toys and we were looking at the Duplo blocks. All the sudden, I looked over to see him holding his diaper. I really have no idea how it happened: the other leg was still attached. It must have been sliding down that leg and he pulled out out through the bottom of his pant leg. 

I grabbed him and the diaper and we hurried over to the changing room (very close). Crisis averted. 

I tried to buy the Duplo set, only to find that she charged it all to the credit card and nothing came off the gift card. There definitely should be a balance, so I asked, but did not understand her explanation for why the card didn’t work. 

Anyway, so I returned the Duplo set. We then walked out and to the Main Street and looked around Artbox. We were then disappointed to find that the little stream and the fountain in the street were also off. 

We headed home, stopping first at Starbucks to get a smoothie (trying to use up another gift card I’ve been carrying around). This was a bit of a mistake, as August wanted smoothie as well it ended up with him splattering and dripping smoothie on his shirt in the subway. 

He was acting tired by the time we got to Hagye, so once on the platform I set him down to turn around the carrier. He spent the next ten minutes exploring the platform. 

He continued to act tired, but he wasn’t falling asleep by the time we got home, so we first went to the grocery store next door. 

 

Watching the construction site: 

Watching the fountain and eating: 

Napping: 

Playing on the roof: 

Leading me through the maze: 

Sheep: 

Water bottle: 

Trees: 

In the toy store: 

This morning August had fun when Carly ‘cut’ the plastic fruit and vegetables with the plastic knife. We also think he is saying ‘subak’ now (the Korean word for watermelon). Also, he is saying ‘tee tee’ to refer to Glecy (‘auntie’). Finally, he found it very funny to steal Carly’s toothbrush out of her mouth. 

At 11 we met our friend Meg and headed down to Insadong. We first looked for a place to eat, and ended up at a nice sandwich place called Peggy Pie. We then walked through Insadong and on to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA).

In the street behind the MMCA there was a craft fair set up, and we bought a doll we are calling Angeles for August. We bought it from two women that work with an organization called Talk to Me (http://talktome.or.kr), which we believe is a children’s charity, but like most Korean websites their ‘about’ page is an image, meaning it can’t be translated. 

Anyway, we were excited by this find as the price was right, it is a very unique doll, and we’ve been wanting to get him a doll. 

From there wee continued to the MMCA. August had fallen asleep during our walk, and was asleep for much of our MMCA visit. But he woke up when I put my shoes back on after walking through one piece that involved a room with hundreds of white ropes dangling from the ceiling. 

After that, Meg had to leave and we introduced August to Angeles. He was very excited to meet Angeles. We then went to one more exhibit, Robot Essay, that was my favorite. August wasn’t doing to well with it though, so Carly hung out with him and played on the floor with her water bottle and Angeles and did a lot of waving to people. He is also obsessed with grates, thinking there could be water under them, and there were grates outside the window that he couldn’t get to. 

We then took August back to one room that we had gone to when he was asleep. It was covered in color on all the walls and the floor. As expected, he really liked it. 

We then left and walked south and went to Subway so that Carly could get a sandwich for dinner. August was fascinated by the big ceiling fan. 

Finally, we went to the Buddhist temple, where they still have an amazing number of lanterns hanging, forming a huge ceiling around much of the temple, and encircling the huge tree next to it. 

We headed home. At home August got to play with the vacuum cleaner nozzle and attachment when we vacuumed out the couch, I gave him a bath he wasn’t too fond of, and he had fun playing with the bedroom door and seeing me when he opened it. He would then push the door closed. 

Playing at lunch: 

Buying Angeles: 

Meeting Angeles: 

Awesome robot art: 

Playing in the museum: 

Lanterns at the temple:

Staring up at a ceiling fan in Subway: 

Home: 

Yesterday, August and I stopped at Morning Glory to get a card and a couple gifts for Carly’s fake birthday. This morning, I got up before her to have it out on the table when she woke up.

In addition to the card, we had found her a Larva handheld fan (August found that one), a box of fake Oreos, and one of those expanding/shrinking plastic balls that Carly has wanted on multiple occasions. 

August loved both the fan and ball as well, and played with them a lot this morning. We spent much of the morning cleaning and organizing. We rearranged his toys, reduced the size of the mat since he doesn’t crawl anymore, and started to remove some toys he doesn’t use anymore. 

There were also Skype sessions with Cassie and Viv and with Glecy. 

During his nap, I went to Home Plus and did our grocery shopping. When I came back, we continued to clean and started to prepare the food. 

Around 3 I took August out to the park by the children’s center. There was a youth symphony performing out front. August spent a lot of time playing with his football, then we watched the symphony for about 10 minutes. When they finished a piece he would sign for more. He played with his soccer ball for awhile more, then wanted up and pointed back to the symphony. He was getting a bit overwhelmed though, as he was then fixated on the cords, and water, then garbage, etc. 

So we headed home. Derek showed up around 5:15 and Jill and Logan arrived a little later. Fun was had. August and Logan are interacting a little more each time. In particular they had fun playing on the bed. 

They walked home, and we accompanied them as far as the bridge before turning around. August lasted a little longer at home, but it was a pretty straightforward transition to bedtime. 

 

Mama’s presents: 

Soccer ball time: 

Watching the symphony: 

Spoon: 

Not my child: 

Carly left some stuff at home this morning, so August and I made a delivery this morning, leaving a little after 7. He thought it was pretty cool to be out of the house so early and he spent the entire bus trip staring out the bus windows and pointing. 

After leaving APIS we went to the one children’s park in the area we had not et been to. He tried a baby swing for the first time (he wasn’t a fan), had a snack, watched an ant, swung with me for a long time, and explored the bushes and sand. In total we were there for over an hour. 

We then walked home and he stayed up until 11:30. He took an hour long nap, after which he had some lunch and we headed to Dream Forest. The really cool wading pool was off, but we played in the rectangular shallow pools and watched the fountain. It was his first time wearing a swimming diaper. 

We were there for about 45 minutes, then headed to APIS. We stopped and played in the park across from APIS for a few minutes before going in.

It was in the mid-80s today, so we took the bus home. 

Today he was working on the words ‘crunch’ and ‘icky’. And I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that he says ‘ant’, although it sounds more like ‘nant’. I couldn’t get him to actually say it on video today. 

Home: 

Wading pool: 

Across from APIS: 

Home: 

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: