Korean Spring

Even though we could have done without the week long stay in two different Korean hospitals for Ava, we were able to enjoy a short visit from Nonni, be surrounded by thousands of dainty blossoms and eat gobs of delicious Korean goodies to make up for that. Oh and I turned 30. No big deal.

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Happy (belated) Spring!

Christmas in February

Christmas 2013 will forever be remembered as the Christmas where the person formally known as Amy threatened to cancel Christmas and narrowly avoided telling her three year old son that Santa does not exist as a result of prolonged lack of sleep. 

To sum our Christmas up, I lost my shit.  

The saddest part about this was the fact that the incident that pushed me over the edge was there were no new slippers under the tree with my name on them.

True story. 

I tried to blame the Zero REM sleep combined with two cups of Chad's extra strong coffee for the meltdown but in hindsight, it does not make me feel any better.

I think back on Christmas morning and all I see is the three sleepy faces looking peculiarly up at me as I go on some non-sensical tirade about how noooobbooodddyyy cares, everyone is an ingrate, our Korean kitchen can just go up in flames because it burned my dutch baby and how much I. HATE. CHRISTMAS.

By mid-morning, I just wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment.

By dinner time, I wished I could have started the entire day over.

By bedtime, I was happy to see December 25, 2013 come to a close.

Before falling asleep (but after I apologized to my husband), I said a silent prayer asking for forgiveness. I prayed to be a better me tomorrow and everyday leading up to Christmas 2014. 

And I may have put a plug in there about new slippers as well.

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And because I don't want anyone thinking I'm a worse mother than I (admittedly) was on Christmas, I did do a little 1st birthday party for our Ava.
"Party" is used loosely here as it was more of a glorified play-date but it was good food, great company and some Christmas cookies were decently decorated so overall it was a nice birthday for her.

So far my quiet prayer for 2014 has been answered (and I got new slippers in the mail a week after Christmas) in case you were wondering.

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“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.” 
― Bill Watterson

Calvin & Hobbes

Last stop: Suwon

As my parent's visit came to an end, we spent one of our last afternoons together at the Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon. We took the little train all the way to the top and then all the way back down. We arrived just in time to see one of the performances that take place at the palace and it showed traditional weaponry and fighting techniques of the past. It was quite impressive. We then took a little jaunt down "Food Alley" where we, again, did not get any food. They had just had a Junk Art Festival earlier in the month and a lot of their up-cycled art was set up along the route. We had planned on going into the tea house at the actual fortress but after Rhett rammed his head into a pole while riding the tram, followed by hitting his already wounded lip when he tripped on a stair (I can't make this stuff up), we decided maybe it best just to load up and head home.

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Read about our last visit to Suwon here.

Icheon Rice Cultural Festival by accident

I wanted to visit Icheon because I heard that is the mother load for Korean ceramics. Those that know me best know that I have an affinity for anything made of clay.

 It's my kryptonite. 

Unfortunately, like most "quick" trips in Korea, we ended up getting lost and stuck smack dab in the middle of the Icheon Rice Cultural Festival. 

After circling around the park numerous times in our car, we decided to just go with the flow and check out this festival.

A translator would have been ideal at this point as I was so overwhelmed by everything that after 30 minutes of wandering aimlessly, we asked for directions to the ceramic village and gave up on the idea of enjoying any rice at the said festival.

I would consider going again next year if only to eat some of the rice that was once served to kings! 

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Icheon Ceramic Village

FYI: Look for this set-up on the side of the road when trying to locate the ceramic village. Hindsight, guys, hindsight. 

All things ceramic! 

And unrelated to our trip to Icheon but put here because I can no longer remember where it fit in our sequence of events, I introduce you to the 'Formally known as Uncle Burger now Older Sister Burger's Bulgogi burger.' 

We don't have a lot in Anjeong-ri but thank God for these bad boys.

Freshly made right in front of you and picked from a speciality menu that contains only eight items.

Wonderful in a bun.

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Information regarding the Rice Cultural Festival can be found here and information for the ceramics village here.

And in the event that you don't believe me about my love for ceramics please refer to this blog. Or this one. And maybe this one. 

Thank you!