My little women and me

This morning we had the kids each grab an outfit as we ran out the door for a hiking adventure in Juwangsan National Park. It's doughnut day in Daegu because there is a shijang/시장 (open air market) outside of Halmoni's apartment that grows substantially on Mondays, which includes the addition of a doughnut lady. She has become Hannah's favorite Korean with her rice cake doughnuts and red bean filled doughnuts.  Back to the hike.  It was sprinkling as we left for our hike so we decided to stop for doughnuts. They weren't ready so we headed for the bank and then proceeded to wait in a heavier rain for doughnuts.  By the time we had our doughnuts, we were going to Busan for the night instead of going hiking.  Rain. Hiking.  Nah.  

We had the shortest wait for a train ever as we had to run to hop on our train.  In Busan, were staying in our second guesthouse.  We've found them to be a great solution for big families. We basically rent a dorm for just our family and it's a great fit. Everyone gets a twin bed, they have breakfast and it's pretty cheap. Hotel rooms here tend to be for 2 people, which would cost us a fortune. The guest houses are everywhere and are full of cute little touches. I love them! 

We went to Jagalchi today, which is Busan's notorious fish market.  They had a rich abundance of all things seafood. Live, freshly killed and dried of everything you could imagine.  We even saw some turtles waiting for some sort of future on a kitchen table. (Cover your ears, Leo!)  Chris was in heaven and ended up eating sea squirt and eel with the more adventurous Kanglings. Everyone at least tried it except for Hannah and Lilly, who are notorious for their picky eating.  Can you really call any Kang a picky eater? Probably not, but in comparison with their siblings...yeah, they're picky. We then wandered through the market that had more than just seafood. The biggest find? My drink that I've been searching for all throughout the past two weeks. There is a grain drink mix called Misugaru that I love to mix with a little bit of honey in the morning. Sometimes people make smoothies with it and I wanted to try it so badly but Halmoni doesn't have a blender and nobody else seems to sell the darn thing. I even had a barista tell me that I should just make it at home.  I got it tonight!  And the kids watched in horror as I ordered this healthy brown smoothie. And then they tried it.  Everyone wanted a little bit more. And a little bit more.  I got enough but next time I'm lucky enough

To find a Misugaru smoothie, I'm getting two of them. 

In other big news, the Kang girls felt their first earthquake today.  The epicenter was actually close to Daegu so I imagine it was felt stronger there.  After sitting in a delayed subway (never happens here!), Autumn got an emergency text telling us that there was an earthquake.  Our subway carried on.  We were walking back to our guest house via a food market (do you see a pattern?  We are culinary travelers!) when things started shaking. It wasn't enough to knock anyone over but Lilly was so terrified! She ran to me just in time for it to stop and we had a lesson about aftershocks.  It wasn't until 2 hours later that we found out it was not an aftershock but a stronger earthquake.   Nothing tragic or horrible but I bet the girls will always remember the earthquake they felt while hunting for some good steamed buns and hotteok.  All in all, a good day.  

Ooh...small world story. We got off the bus right after getting to Busan and started wandering around to find a guesthouse. Across the street was a flock of p-daying missionaries and, of course, one of them had just been transferred from our branch last week. What are the odds?