busan tower

the tower is a 120 meter vertical projection in the heart of yongdusan park. from its apex, one is offered a striking view of the surrounding cityscape.

we spent the better part of a day getting out to the park, enduring a cab ride across town through peak traffic; a grueling trek up a winding mountain trail with children occupying hips, backs, shoulders and arms; a strained foreign language ticket purchase and an overcrowded elevator ride wearing a baby backpack which caused me to grossly misjudge my spatial displacement; plowing over women and children, tearing through flesh and sinew like so much tissue paper.

all to take this single photograph...

...and then chase pigeons around for two and a half hours...

on the way home we stopped by the trendy shopping district near the nam po dang marketplace, where you can find any product normally made by u.s. companies in the philippines and sold for 7,000 times the production cost; made by korean bootleggers and sold domestically for a quarter the normal retail value. pen and eli posed for some pictures and very quickly went from cute...

...to silly...

...to "whose kids are those?"

the world is our aquarium

many parents of young children are familiar with the fish tank delay- the phenomenon in which an errand involving a fish tank bearing locale takes a standard fifteen minutes longer than a comparable fish-free destination. example: wal-mart for a pack of gum. before kids: 1 minute; after kids: 26 minutes. (you forgot to add the extra 10 minutes for the fight over the gum, didn't you? who chooses the gum, what color to get, who gets to hold the gum- haven't you learned anything as a parent, don't ever buy gum with kids present!)


my original point about fish tanks is what makes the streets of south korea a difficult place to walk with kids when any kind of time constraint exists. the sidewalks are peppered with aquatic basins, each one furnished with a delightful cross section of some oceanic ecosystem. of course, the main purpose of these pint-sized environs is to serve as living menus for local eateries- a good faith display of the food's freshness. to the strolling child, however, they provide endless opportunities for delaying, tarrying, or all out filibustering of any family activity that might otherwise be planned.

the octopus was a highlight...

...until a kindly restauranteur caught the kids gazing in his tank and brought them out a sample specimen. after looking over my shoulder to make sure there were no PETA representatives present, i continued assisting in the prodding of the shark.

despite all the free entertainment we had access to, we actually did pay admission to a real aquarium at haeundae bay, although there was some discrepancy regarding the admission- although we attended on penelope's third birthday, she was still two according to the date in california where she was born. we used the younger of the ages for infant admission. dubious, perhaps, but if it puts fourteen thousand south korean won back in my pocket, i'm willing to live with the guilt.

(the korean word for aquarium, by the way, is a'-kwe-ri'-um, with the stress on the first and penultimate syllables, as opposed to the dominant second syllable in english.)

allow me to interject...

since it came up, i'd like to pause my east asian narrative long enough to mention that i cropped the john lennon tribute sitting on top of eli's head. since kelley loves the mop top so much, i consented to leave the mane untouched until our trip was over. once we got back, i had his coiffer bagged and on the curb just before i put my luggage down. judge for yourself which is the better style- personnaly, i just got tired of people asking us for directions to the shire.

korean food

"chal mogosumnida" is a korean phrase which means "i ate well". it's one of the first things i learned to say, even before i learned, "i'm full", "i couldn't eat another bite", and "please take me to the emergency room". i've always been an admirer of food in all its forms and flavors. the words "distasteful, unsavory, and disagreeable" are simply not found in my personal lexicon when food is the subject- i've eaten lots of adventurous cuisines, and the very worst i've ever tasted i would describe as "merely palatable". this gift (or, "eating disorder" if you prefer the professional terminology) has served me well in my international experiences. however, kids (and koreans raised in the united states, as it turns out) are not always as eager to adopt new eating habits. one thing we can always count on when we go to korea is that there will be food a plenty...

eating out in korea is an exercise in endurance. you don't order a single menu item, but rather an endless cavalcade of marinated meats, pickled roots, potent sauces, and other ambrosial delights. often you'll find a grill built right into the table, minimizing the meat's exposure to harmful flavor reducing elements which are too often encountered between grill and mouth.

these noodles tend to stick together- not a problem if you can fit the entire bowl in your mouth.

a typical spread at home.

now, i'm not one to back away from spicy food, but these peppers don't go down without a fight. kelley's mom, on the other hand, bites the tops off like they were made out of pez.

we were both blown away when pen started eating this squid jerky. of course, as soon as i started taking pictures, she realized she was doing something noteworthy and promptly set it down. in eli's words, "this needs to be cooked".

kelley appreciated this soup for aesthetics, although i don't recall her taking a single bite. one technique she employed was to get very busy with a "needy" child as the bowl was being passed around.

* * * * * * * * * *

as for the kids, they quickly realized that there was enough ice cream cone purchasing going on to subsist on without too much trouble- meals in the conventional sense became unnecessary...

on this particular night, penelope dropped a record three scoops of ice cream on the ground- each time someone was there with a new cone while the scoop was still falling to the earth.

for those of you who would be drinking more milkshakes if not for the staggering inconvenience of the cup- we give you the "milkshake in a bag".

(babies like it, too)

and, of course, something to wash it down...

(for all other times, there was of course the option of treat milk)

treat milk

they called it "treat milk", and for good reason. after all, it has all the liquid properties of milk, with none of the associated nutritional value. it claims to be a yogurt based drink, but the taste lies somewhere between melted mike & ikes and honey-baked skittles. it was their staple drink for two weeks, and they found no shortage of suppliers. they say the body is 70% water. by the end of the trip, i'd say the kids were around 10-15.

kor-riffic adventure (part 1)

after a long vacation from blogging, (inspired by the gruesome demise of my laptop in an auto accident) we took a long vacation from life (inspired by my deep-rooted passion for not working). unfortunately, i'm afraid i've well overused my vacation time on either front, and i return to my rather nebulous job responsibilities of mostly sitting around. a visit to our family in korea was, as always, long overdue, so we hopped on a 777 to seoul and can now respond to those of you who said a transcontinental trip with three young children couldn't be done, that it merely shouldn't be done.

the aircraft type in itself was the matter of some contention. eli was sure that a 747 would have been a better choice. at the international terminal in san francisco, he walked me around to every single gate occupied by one of the iconic wide-bodies pleading his case for a last minute aircraft swap. he was more than happy to accept a lengthy beijing or hamburg layover if it meant a ride on the overtly conspicuous two layered airframe. it was not without tears that he was convinced to board the triple.

parenting and vacation together are, in and of themselves an interesting behavioral juxtaposition. it is a curious and directly competitive relationship in which only one can truly survive. i don't make any claims on the "father of the year" title, but my parenting style went quite quickly from what one might call "directed development" to a severely degenerated bastardization more closely resembling wyle e. coyote sticking his fingers and toes in rapidly developing leaks at the bottom of a dam. things i found myself saying include, but are not limited to:

• "eat two bites of cereal, or you'll get no more candy until lunchtime."
• "if you're going to play in the middle of the street, you need to have your shoes on."
• "we're going home- you can stay here and live by yourself in the cookie aisle."
• "if you're going to eat nothing but ice cream and soda for dinner, you need to take two big drinks of water before bed- and this time i mean it!!!"

of course, the language barrier masks much of the more embarrasing functions of the innefective parent. basically, as long as you don't yell, you can rest assured that anything you say to your kids in english just sounds like charlie brown's teacher to everyone else in the room. thus, bribery is lost in translation, as in "give your imo (maternal aunt) a hug and i'll give you a piece of candy."- onlookers witness only the negotiated behaviour and extrapolate a percieved (if slightly inaccurate) loving exchange between parent and child.

tickets in hand.

( after a most onerous journey, we engaged in the culturally deep rooted tradition of sitting on the couch and watching t.v.)

among our first items of business was grabbing some comfort food for the kids at the nearest "home plus" market. koreans don't commonly eat american foods like yogurt, cereal, etc. so what they do have of it is more like dessert. (cereals are vulcanized in sugar, a cup of yogurt tastes more like half melted ice cream, and apparently, all the milkfat we remove from our dairies is exported for infusion in the korean treatment of lactose.) surprisingly, i couldn't get my kids to eat any of it. so between that and the cheese sticks i bought which turned out to be bologna flavored, most of the family came home looking like nicole richie on ultra slim fast. still, i managed to keep the total family weight deviation at a net positive.

disappointed with much of what home plus had to offer, eli did strike up a friendship with the on location nestle quick representative.

(more to come...)

stand by...

many of you are likely not checking the blog very often anymore. so we thought we'd give you a heads up that we'll be posting again soon. we're in korea right now, but you can expect an update from us when we get back in about a week or so.