bugs, infections and hospitals, oh my!

              

The last couple of days have been a little busy as Elise’s strange mosquito allergy has turned into an infection.  I made her some garlic poultices and rotated them off and on while throwing in my essential oils and, in my defense (Hannah said I was going overboard), the swelling on her arm went away with my efforts.  Our family was very sweet and very concerned about it so this afternoon (after reading about all sorts of complications with infections), I gave in to their insistence that we take her to the 평원 (hospital).  It took me years of freaking out before I found out that when Koreans take someone to the hospital, they are normally just taking them to the doctor.  I used to worry so much every time I was told that my mother in law went to the hospital!  So Elise went to the “hospital”, I discovered how dirt cheap a doctor visit is in Korea and then we all had peace of mind.  Chris' sweet aunt drove us over and did a bang up job of speaking Korean for me. I was warned that without insurance, I would have to pay for the whole bill.  I barely scraped together the $15 to cover it. ;) And then the prescriptions for a few different medications…that came to a whopping $11.  Needless to say, I am no longer quite as concerned about the kids getting sick over here.  As a little side note before you berate the state of healthcare in the United States, this is the same country that said Chris’ grandma was too old for open heart surgery to be worth it some 15 years ago.  I’m pretty glad that family pulled together the funds and that we got to make that decision, not them.

The bottom line is that I don’t have to stay up all night worrying about Elise dying in Korea and, much to her disappointment, she gets to go to school tomorrow.  She was such a sweet patient, always thanking me profusely for anything I did for her and just enjoying our time together.  It was a nice change of pace having her home, beyond the worrying and covering her in garlic all day.  This girl and her darn mosquito bites.  We now put mosquito repellant on her twice a day. 
                                 
Before Elise’s infection started peaking, we took a little trip to a riverside park close to the girls’ school.  I thought it would be a fun after school trip but I am now learning how pooped the kids are after a day full of class time.  Hannah lost 7 attitude points at the park!  The other girls only had a bad attitude until they got close enough to the river to see the swan boats.  They quickly perked up as the swan boats were a bucket list item on our last trip that we never got to cross off due to wind.  We came.  We swanned.  We conquered.  But not before our boat died in the middle of the river.  There was a school kayaking team out practicing and I felt really bad not being able to steer out of their way, but help eventually came.  Contrary to Elise’s belief, it died from a bunch of gunk being in the motor, not due to my general incompetence.  Hannah was in a much better mood once our boat died as her sense of adventure kicked in.  She was humiliated when I replied (she apparently wanted me to sit silent!) to some of the kayakers who were concerned.  My korean stinks enough that I told him to please tell my friend that our boat died vs what I was going for, which was “We’re ok.  We told our friend that our boat died.”  He raced over in his kayak and told Chloe all about our boat dying and I realized my mistake while he paddled.  Oops!  I forgot to use past tense AND I didn’t use an object marker.  Korean has very flexible word order but you put markers on the subject and object.  When speaking casually, sometimes they drop either/both and leave it to context.  This was apparently not a good time to do this.  I’ve decided to leave it to the natives to decide when they feel comfortable dropping markers but that I am not quite experienced enough to decide. 

In other good news: The flower bread lady has come out.  She makes little flower waffles filled with red bean in her cart and we’ve missed her immensly.  We had started to wonder if she had moved, but all is well in the world.  

(Also, you're welcome for the cute puppy pictures instead of Elise's gross arm pictures, which I do have plenty of. I thought these were better alternatives.) 

Yesterday was our first day on our allowance system that Chloe helped create for me.  I'll start with a disclaimer.  We do not do allowance of any kind back home.  We implemented allowance on our last trip as a way of giving the kids spending money in Korea and as a way of cutting down on the many requests for all of the adorable stuff they have here.  This time around, we've made a rather complex system where I give them daily points for their attitude, how much Korean they speak at home and away from home, how well they know our weekly vocabulary words and how helpful they are around the apartment.  Chloe has the opportunity to earn a little more (this was my addition, not hers) by using her phone wisely in a 4 different ways.  

One of my biggest character flaws is my lack of ability to stick with things.  (schedules, plans, chore charts, etc). I lack grit.  The only reason why I think this has the power to work is because the kids are invested in it working as their allowance is tied to it.  Yesterday was a dream.  The kids have been especially whiny and they've been arguing a lot since we came to Korea. (I like to think it is because they're adjusting to being in such a small space with each other, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating!) I only had one kid lose points from having a bad attitude and from arguing with a sister AND when I was calculating points that night, she said "I have 5 attitude points."  She knew.  So here is to hoping this keeps on working.

Hannah and Chloe are really diving into their Korean class.  I wish I could find a way for them to get their high school language credit from this.  They're spending 20 hours a week learning Korean but it doesn't count as their language credit.  It is kind of a shame but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of solutions out there.  They both came in from school and pulled out their vocabulary lists, made a quilt list and spent the afternoon trying to memorize them all.

Yesterday was Lilly's first day at Taekwondo.  (Elise starts on Wednesday thanks to a mosquito allergy that caused a pretty swollen elbow!) She was so excited to go and even paid for her own dobok.  The teachers were worried that she would feel behind and uncomfortable (they wanted her to join the foreigner class at 9 pm...Koreans have such late bedtimes!) but Lilly said she had a great time and she can't wait to head back.  After class, her teacher asked me if she is shy, to which I answered "She isn't as shy as Elise!".  He'll see what shy really looks like on Wednesday.  This is such a quintessential Korean activity!  Last time we came to Korea, I tried to make the kids to Taekwondo but there was serious push back.  This time, even Hannah wants to do it!  Last night made a quizlet list of basic Taekwondo terms, which will hopefully help the girls not bring shame upon our family name and help them not give blank stares when asked to do things. ;)

And just as a reminder for me: I have resolved to call Halmoni every week when we get home.  It is really hard to call her because our language skills are pretty remedial but being here with her has shown me how much those calls mean to her.  Chris' mom calls every Monday afternoon (Sunday night) and Halmoni schedules her day around it.  She is always home for a few hours on Monday to answer this one phone call.  We facetimed Chris today and throughout the day I heard her tell several people all about her conversation with him.  It means so much to her!  So when we return, we will do better.

Saturday chillin'

This post is just for my dad.  He sent me no pressure sort of message letting me know that my blog is the first thing he checks in the morning.  Just to clarify, I don't expect anyone to check this regularly.  My blog was the only thing that helped me put together a decent collection of our travels last time we went to Korea.  Thus I blog because my memory stinks.  

Yesterday was a pretty chill day.  Elise and Lilly hung out with Yeju all day long so it was just the older girls with me.  We started off with a Korean cooking class sponsored by the Daegu YMCA.  We were 15 minutes late so we missed the majority of the cooking (it was an easy recipe), but we got the gist of it by finished up the food and we didn't miss the most important part. Eating it!  We made Ddeok Kalbi, which is basically korean meatloaf that is wrapped around a large piece of ddeok (rice cake).  It was delicious and I look forward to finding cheap enough ground beef to make it at home.  

After the cooking class, I gave the girls a pass to do whatever they would like in downtown Daegu.  It is crazy crowded on weekends and they opted for a lot of shopping.  There are so many options for shopping in this area so we spent some time above ground, checking out the many make up stores (korean cosmetics are really fun to explore.  Their lipsticks are different, they have face masks of every variety you can imagine and their bb cream is just superior.), we hung out in the basement of Kyobo bookstore exploring school supplies (so many cute things!  My theory is that through cute school supplies, they make their many hours dedicated to studying tolerable) and then we headed to the underground shopping area.  This is a subway mall that is connected to a subway station and things tend to be a little cheaper down there.  As we were checking out the goods down below, we heard all sorts of ruckus from up above.  When we made it up to ground level again, we found ourselves right in the midst of a protest.  We still aren't sure what they were protesting, but they were carrying Korean and American flags while marching.  Like I said before, this is a very busy section of town (especially on Saturday) and they had to shut down two lanes of traffic for this march.  I don't imagine this happens very often but it was fun to see Koreans being passionate about their beliefs.  I don't normally feel this way about protesting as it is done all.the.stinking.time in Portland.  I think the frequency of protests in Portland diminishes the impact.   I tried to get the girls to join in for a free Korean bandana but they said something about not marching when they don't know what they're marching for.  Lame.

We headed off for a cause that we knew we could support.  Gluten.  We decided to try out the Schumann Cafe that offers unlimited bread for its customers.   We weren't quite sure what level the bread would be on but we soon found out that it was well worth it.  They had a large selection of pastries and bread and it was set up so you could take small portions of each type so you could explore the different varieties.  I love my bread and feel like I've tried everything, but there were some new breads that wowed me!  One of my favorites was a yeast chocolate bread.  I've never seen anything like it.  It had a thin shell of chocolate on the top of the crust, the actual bread was a hint chocolate flavor (not really sweet) and before you hit the bottom crust, there was a little layer of chocolate truffle stuff.  It was delicious and unexpected!  We also loved their olive bread that was a light and fluffy sourdough.  After spending an hour just hanging out in this very aesthetically pleasing cafe, we went to use the bathroom.  It was then that we found out that the downstairs is full of private little corners for you to hang out in, complete with a hammock chair and study rooms.  Next time we go, we'll have to hang out downstairs!  Oh, their drinks were yummy and well presented also.  Between the three of us, we had an Oreo shake, lemonade and a mango smoothie.  The Oreo shake was the least sweet somehow but they were all adorable and delicious.  We will be going back there again, but not too soon.  It is definitely a 5 pound cafe. 

Ooh.  What did Lilly and Elise do?  They partied.  They did ceramics, went to Daegu Stadium (there is a big park there) and finished off their day at the Jjimjilbang.  One thing I didn't tell you about Jjimjilbangs is that they have a lot of stuff for kids to do.  They have a play area, a movie room, a restaurant and an ice room in the sauna area.   They came home right before midnight and crashed.I'm so grateful for friends in Korea!