Sun Chips

I just have to say, Washington DC is awesome.  It's beautiful, and walkable, and there's good food everywhere!  The first day we were there we walked around and visited a couple museums.

Back of the White House.

Front.

Loved this food stand.

Natural History.

The Capitol.

 If anyone is curious what jet lag looks like, here you go...

We tried so hard to stay awake until 6pm, but it was too hard.  Unfortunately, this is how we all felt our whole time in DC.

Gudu

I forgot to write one thing about Korea.  Everywhere we went, we noticed right away that everyone was wearing brightly colored athletic shoes.  I would say about 8 out of 10 people walking around were wearing tennies.  And they were all very colorful!  It didn't matter how old or young the person was.  It was awesome.  My Converse looked drab!

It's Like I've Been Here Before

Even after a 14 hour flight, they were excited to be in America.

Yay!

Drinking fountains!

Seeing the flag was awesome, but what we really wanted was the food!

Quarters

The next morning, we decided to go see the city.  We got super lucky because it was a holiday, and there was a big parade and all kinds of costumes.

Gyeong Bok Gung Palace.

As soon as we walked in, we were approached by a bunch of kids.  They all had iPads and they were practicing their English on us.  They were students who were doing a "scavenger hunt" for a class.  One of the things they needed to do was to take a picture making a star with fingers.  We were one of only a few western families there, so we made a lot of stars and had a lot of pictures taken of us.

This place was beautiful!

This was the guard out front.  He stood very still.

Then we went to a market.  Shoes everywhere!  We almost bought some "Gangnam Style" socks.  You know, since we were near Gangnam.

We bought some pancakes (?) from this guy.  They were had a chestnut filling.  Yum!

This pretty much ended our time in Seoul.  Even though it was only 2 days, I loved it!  It was so nice.  I don't want to sound too harsh on Jakarta, but it was like opposite world.  Everything was clean and organized.  There were big buildings, but there was non of the glitz.  It was just efficient.  And I saw families everywhere.  Dad's taking care of kids, and moms carrying their own babies around.  And even though it is still very populated, and people are everywhere, they all had something to do.  It seemed there was a sense of pride in what they did.  Again, I know it was only 2 days, but that was my impression.  We were happy being there.

The Banner

Even after I try so hard, I find myself struggling to keep up on my blog.  Again.  But I thought this post would be worth getting a bit out of order for.  It seems appropriate.  When we left Jakarta, we were lucky enough to spend some time in the USA.  It was wonderful to say the least.  There were many things that we loved and brought smiles to our faces, but one thing we noticed right away were the American flags everywhere.  They were everywhere.  What a cool flag!  Here are some of the pictures that I took...

DC.

Reagan National.

At the gift shop.

New York City.

San Diego.

Off the side of the road in northern Arizona.

This was the first one we saw when we landed in Dulles.

I was very excited to see it.

Happy Independence Day!

Where's the best place to get Bibimbap?

A few hours later we landed in Seoul.  We planned on staying there a couple of nights.  You know, because we've never been to Seoul before!

Since it was an overnight flight, we arrived early in the morning.  After getting settled a bit in the hotel, Nate and I went to find some breakfast.

There were these street stalls everywhere.  The food they were making smelled so delicious!  This was the first county we've been in where we didn't know any of the language.  Nothing!  No numbers, no thank yous.  We had no idea what was out there, and the workers didn't speak English either.  So of course we ordered something.  hehehe

We decided on what looked like pasta in a chili sauce.  We knew it wasn't pasta, but it could have been animal guts for all we knew.  Turns out, it was rice dumpling type things.  They were swimming in a super spicy sauce.  It was so yummy!  And it was super fun to eat on the street with a plastic bag covered bowl, and toothpicks.  The ladies were super nice, and even though we couldn't understand a word they were saying, they were happy to explain what we were eating and how to eat it.

There were no clues in the language at all!  We had no idea what we were buying unless the packaging looked familiar.

Bibimbap.

Warning:  Those black bowls are freaking hot!  We burned ourselves like 23 times.  The waitress even brought us some burn ointment.  Which is pretty funny to have at a restaurant.

We took a night walk.

We were not used to the cold!

This lady wanted us to come to her restaurant.  She was talking away for a good 5 minutes!  We are pretty sure she counted the kids and gave us a huge congrats, but that was only deciphered through sign language.  As we walked away, one of the kids asked Nate, "What did she say?"  We thought it was funny that the kids automatically assume Nate knows foreign languages.  But he told them what he thought, and that was a good enough answer.

Sudah Habis

Here's the kids in front of our house right before we got in the car to go to the airport.  Good bye Jakarta!

Pancoran

The road we took to get to church was extremely interesting.  I had plans to walk it one morning to take pictures, but it never happened.

Both sides of the street were lined with people selling all kinds of fruit, vegetables, and meat.  Most of the time, the vendors would just throw down some newspaper on the ground and cover it with whatever they were selling.  They use the balance scales like you see in Bible movies.  And the chickens lay out on newspaper too, in the sun, accompanied by flies.  There were also live goats and sheep to buy.  There was a lot going on.  I'll miss that drive.   

There was also that statue in the picture above.  He pointed the way to church.  I always looked for him, especially when I was driving myself.

Here's a better picture of it.

All In A Day

Since I didn't take a picture of the girls on their first day of school, I took one on the last.

BA and her bus.

She went to middle school this year.  It was a good year for her.  She had a favorite teacher, and he made grade six a great experience for her.  She made a lot of great friends too.  

Rhon enjoyed being in grade five and ruling the whole school.  The highlight of her year is probably having her best friend, Manu, right by her the whole year.  She will surely be missed.

Dare also enjoyed her year.  Grade three was all fun.  She really like her teacher, and had a friend everywhere.

She was emotional that morning mostly because of a clothing misunderstanding, but I think she (along with everyone else) was a little out of sorts.

I didn't take a picture of the boys, but they were home schooled this year.  I decided to keep Mads home for grade one, and G just came along for the ride.  It was a hard decision, but in the end, I thought it was best.  We had a great time.  I didn't do all the things I had planned, and it was more challenging than I thought.  I'm not making excuses, but it would have been a lot easier if I had a Michael's or Target down the street.  Well, maybe I am making excuses, but there you have it.  The boys were able to hang out all the time, and their relationship is so strong because of it.  So I call it a success.

***** 

I had one of my last tennis lessons that day.  This is Frankie.  He taught me how to play!  He had to of gotten bored with me, but he never stopped hitting me balls for about a year and a half.  He didn't have great English, so it was mostly quiet between the two of us.  But every once in while, he would shout things at me like, "Top spin.  Please!"  Maybe he thought by saying please I was more likely to comply.  Little did he know that I was trying to do a top spin every flipping time.

He also gave the girls lessons.

I did not get a picture of Max, but he gave the boys lessons.  He is Frankie's shorter, older brother.  He had great English, and he was awesome with the boys.

*****

Rhon and Dare had a going away party.  I made them combine their parties.  I couldn't have handled two.  They swam, ate pizza, made lip gloss, and watched a movie.  Swimming went well.  Pizza was great.  Thanks to Chelisa (again!) for lending us her projector, the movie was fun.  But the lip gloss was kind of a disaster.  Picture 15 girls, oil, and food coloring.  Messy to say the least.  But they all had fun. And it's over.  Those are the important details. 

Panic

Mads finally lost his first tooth.  Eleven days after his 7th birthday.  His teeth lasted longer than any of the girls.

We ate satay that night, and he accidentally bit the skewer.  It was a pretty dramatic start to the tooth coming out.  He cried, and there was blood.  But it got it pretty loose.  Then by the end of the night, it was so loose that I told him it needed to come out.  He said, "Okay," and pulled it out.  Simple.

He was so excited.  Mads is a pretty laid back boy.  He doesn't get too emotional about anything.  But that night he couldn't stop talking!  It was hilarious.  He smiled a lot.  He even wanted to keep the tooth.  I think mostly because he wanted to poke Griffin with it to "get revenge!"  He decided he wanted to save all his teeth.  But we lost it right after he put it under his pillow.  I'm not sad about that.

*****

It was also BA's birthday.  She turned 12.  It is a big deal!  I took a picture of her for Instagram, but I just realized that's the only one I took.  She went to Young Women that night.  They made beady bookmarks.  She liked it.  She's excited.

She requested pineapple granita for her dessert.  We had it that night.  But since she went out on her birthday, we celebrated another night.  And because we had no stuff, we went out to dinner.  We had burritos at the mall.  Caliente at Lippo Mall.    

They Took My Shar Pei

One day, eight Indonesian guys came over to pack up our stuff.

They were fast and efficient.  It was a bit surprising based on everything else there.

Crating it up for the boat.

The guy who is waving was friendly.  There was another guy with a big, swollen, bloody toe.

Beijing!

Always barefoot.  Always.

In fact, I remember seeing a guy welding once.  Barefoot.  He was squatting just like most Indos do, and welding barefoot.  He had a cigarette in one hand, and a blowtorch in the other.  He was also wearing a super loose long sleeve shirt.  The sleeves could have caught fire very easily.  And to protect his eyes, he was only wearing flimsy sunglasses.