It's not really your home until...

You bake your first batch of cookies. Don't you think? Which Jane and I did on Friday when Darin got to come home from work early since he's not totally up and running yet there. With Darin home I was able to walk over to the commissary to buy chocolate chips.

As many of you are aware, my heart mostly belongs to Colorado. But on occasion here on the blog, I will try to highlight reasons why Korea deserves some love too.

Here is reason number one why Korea isn't all bad. Baking at nearly sea level produces the most fluffy cookies I've baked in nearly 15 years. And all without any special effort or recipe alterations. So for that, one point is awarded to Korea.


A picture of Soraksan Tower (we live on the third floor) while we were sitting on a bench at the commissary waiting for a taxi. Which brings me to another point of comparison where Colorado it appears will always win...the lack of blue skies. Perhaps my brother Steve (who's heart belongs in large part to Korea) will have something to say in Korea's defense on this point? We've been here lots of days now, and I'm not sure that I've seen the color blue in the sky yet.

I guess it's Monsoon season, so maybe that has something to do with it. On Saturday morning Darin told me that Osan has a biking/running trail that he suggested I go discover. He gave me directions to the air field and told me how to find the path. About 25 minutes into it, the humidity was so oppressive, I wondered if I should just turn around and find a cab back to the house. Unfortunately I kept going. At about 45 minutes into my lap around the air field out of no where they skies opened and the rain poured down so fast that all I could do was laugh. I was completely drenched. It kept raining until finally 1 hour and 20 minutes later I had found my way back home, at which point, it stopped raining.

So a point is awarded to Korea for having a running trail. But Colorado does not have a season called Monsoon. And neither do they have a sign on their running trail that says "Explosives Safety Clear Zone". Which just left me wondering who was safe in the preceding zone, the explosives or me? One point awarded to Colorado and the Santa Fe trail. Again, the competition is going to be stiff!

Here are pictures of our Saturday trip to learn how to ride the subway. The kids standing in front of Songtan station.

Thanks to my brother Steve for giving us very specific instructions, we felt all confident to take the four kids on the subway. We were to take it only two stops, and then get off, and be able to walk at that point to E-Mart (Korea's version of Target).

Here is Ruby staring at the rice fields. For some reason, our kids think they are as awesome as an animal in the zoo. We had to pause and look every time we were walking past rice fields (which meant a lot of pausing and stopping). You can see E-mart in the back ground.


E-Mart is a good resource to know about. Saturday is maybe not the best day to be there. It was overwhelmingly crowded. But we discovered "Eat Smart" in E-Mart. It's like a food court. They had McDonald's. Which is always a good find for the kids. After sitting there long enough I got up enough courage to walk over to the kiosk and order myself and Darin some Korean food. They had the English name underneath the dish I wanted so I tried to say it in English. But it didn't go so well. The woman didn't speak a word of English in return. Instead I started going off of the price. She'd enter something into the computer, then I'd see it wasn't the right price, so I'd say no. Finally something popped up with the right price, and so I said, "Yes, I want that." Luckily whatever I got was delicious. We will order food again at "Eat Smart". Oh the joys of being in a foreign country!

Hope you had a great weekend too.