LIRR

Into the city...

We bought pretzels on the street and ate them with some huge Cokes.  Forgot the bottles came that big in America.

Behind BA is an H&M ad for their swimwear.  They were everywhere.  And huge.  So we saw a lot of Beyonce's bod during our time in New York.

Empire State.  Didn't go to the top.  Too short on time.  Too short on cash.

Times Square.  Did you know Spiderman hangs out here?  And Elmo?  And even Mario?

Best Skylanders display ever!  Made the boys happy.

We also stopped in the Nintendo store.  Their day wasn't going to get much better.

Rockefeller Center.

We ate the most delicious (and most colossal) pastrami sandwiches ever created.  Or at least that we have eaten in a long time.

Rainy day.

Central Park.

We walked to the American Museum of Natural History.

Taze!

Thank you for sharing your room with us!

Coyle's

The next day, we flew to New York.  We are so lucky Trish and Travis are living there, and they let us stay with them!  The first thing we did was go to the beach...

Freezing but fun!  Travis was awesome with the kids.

There were these little crabs everywhere.  The kids loved digging for them and holding them.  They reminded me of nasty bugs, so I didn't touch them.

And, of course, there was some shell collecting.

Then they took us to this awesome pizza place.

Then they took us to this even awesomer ice cream shop!  So so so good.  So good to be in America.

AKA the Rainbow Park

We got to spend a day at the park with some old friends!

Getting there wasn't easy.  We rented a car that day so we go to some old hang outs.  And for some reason when I am driving myself around northern Virginia, I am lost.  Ugh, it's annoying.  Not to mention I had just came from a country where they drive on the left side of the road.  And a country that follows no traffic laws.  I was a bit nervous.  When I was looking for this park, I accidentally pulled into a "special area".  Once I pulled in, I knew it was a wrong turn, but I couldn't get out.  I had to go all the way to the guard station.  He was mean to me!  He asked me why I was there a couple times.  I said I was lost, and said I took a wrong turn.  He told me to never go back there again.  He also said if I passed certain cones, "there would be necessary protocol."  Jeez!

That night we also went to Cheeburger Cheeburger.  One of our old favorites.  It is one of the only things G remembers about living there.  It was fun, but unfortunately everyone was tired and could hardly keep their dropping heads out of the food.  It was a pretty quiet evening.  Not a lot of talking.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture.  

The next day we strolled around the Mall again.

Here we are at Potbelly.  We had our first meal in America here.  It was wonderful.  And then we ate there 3 more times.  It was a happy coincidence that there was one right by our hotel.

Because of jet lag, we had a strange eating schedule.  We usually only had two real meals.  At the times we weren't eating real meals, but we were still hungry, we ate snacks.  We had a premier room at our hotel which basically meant that we had access to free snacks and drinks anytime we wanted.  It was a lifesaver!  Every night at midnight, and every morning at about 4, a group of us would walk over there depending on who was awake.  We raided it.  It was kind of a fun experience to enjoy some very missed American snacks and soda in the middle of the night when no one else was awake.  It was some memorable family time.

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.