Hunting Easter Eggs -- City Style

Growing up, one of my favorite childhood memories was the neighborhood Easter egg hunt my parents would hold.  My parents would spend a lot of time finding very hard places to hide the eggs around our yard so it was super challenging for all of us.  When I grew up, I knew this was something I would incorporate into my own family.  We hold one of these egg hunts in our yard every year, hiding eggs in our bushes, trees, grass, etc.  This year, however, I wasn't sure how this was going to work.  We have no yard.  We live in a city of over 25 million people with not a speck of grass around us.  Right outside is a busy street.  Inside is a tiny apartment.  I decided our Easter egg hunt this year would have to be city style -- trading the grass for pavement, the bushes for stairs, and the yard for a rooftop.  It was actually really fun!  Pete and I had a blast finding hiding places.  Who knew there were so many places to hide Easter eggs in an apartment building?  

We invited the only other family in the building with children to participate.  (Yes, these are the neighbors from the Groundhog's Day post.  They found the Easter egg hunt A LOT more normal!)  The kids had a blast.  

Here are the kids, ready to start.  Nothing but concrete and a little dirt around them.  

And off they go...

After the hunt, we went back to our apartment and opened the eggs.  

This was one of the most unusual Easter egg hunts we've ever held.  It will definitely be one of those "foreign" experiences we take with us from living in Seoul.  We'll do it again next year, but after that, I'm sure the kids will NEVER have another Easter egg hunt like this in their lives.  Fun time!

Korean Fail

So I've been trying really hard to learn Korean.  Everywhere I go, I try to use my new language skills.  Many of the people who work on the Army post are Koreans, so whether I'm outside the post, or inside, I can still attempt to use Korean.  It's really nice.

The other day, I was at the post office on the military post and got into a huge Korean language discussion with the lady behind the counter.  She was super helpful.  When I was walking out the door I ran into someone I knew who asked, "Do you always get a free language lesson with every purchase at the post office?"

Why yes.  Yes I do.

This can be hugely embarrassing to my poor children though.  I had Ali at a fast food restaurant on post the other day.  After we ordered in English, I re-ordered in Korean and asked the lady behind the counter if I said it right.  Ali just about died.  Then the lady, noticing Ali's embarrassment and trying to make it better, said to Ali, "Don't be embarrassed   I like it!  I'm like a Korean teacher."  Ali's face went all red.  Poor girl.

In fact, the kids have to put up with this every day as I come through the gate to get onto the Army post.  There are Korean police that guard the gates, so I probably talk more to them than anyone else.  I was coming through the gate the other day, and after I got through with using my Korean, the gate guard went on to tell me in his broken English how all the other gate guards talk about me and my Korean.  He said, "You're famous.  Like actor."  Not sure how I feel about that.  I'm not sure if he meant a great actress, or more of a comedian.

Oh well.  I'm learning.

So, on to my huge Korean fail the other day.  I was coming off a great shopping trip in Dongdaemun where I had to buy some beads.  I actually asked the guy in Korean if I could buy twenty of these specific beads.  Normally, I just say how many of something I want and add "please give me" to the end.  This time, though, I actually used entire sentences, conjugating the verb to buy into the "can I buy" question form.  (So in Korean, verb conjugation is very different from English.  You still conjugate into past, present, and future, but you also have a million endings to add to tell more about what it is you're doing, like:  shall we do something, would you like to do something, I can do something, I want to do something, I intend to do something...the list of these endings is enormous!  Unfortunately for me, many of them tend to be very similar.  It can be the difference of one syllable sound in between 6 that changes the verb from something you can do to something you are doing now.)  Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself for getting the entire sentence correct and continuing the conversation.  Granted our entire transaction was me speaking 3 or 4 sentences and him speaking about the same.  But I understood him, he understood me, and I felt like it was a huge success!

Now, on to that evening.  Pete and I decided to go to this Korean restaurant down the street from us that we love.  We enjoyed dinner.  We even got a little Korean lesson from our waitress who spoke no English.  Between pointing and gestures, she taught us the Korean word for lettuce.  As we were leaving, I decided to tell the guy behind the counter, where we pay, that the food was delicious.  He actually spoke English, but I wanted to use my Korean.  I spit out my phrase, "The food was delicious" (which I'm very proud of by the way) and he replies back to me in English, "Pomegranate."

Pomegranate?

Really?

Pomegranate!

What in the world did I say!?!  Then the lady next to him starts to say in her broken English, "No.  She said beautiful face.  You...beautiful face."

What!?!  I didn't say anything about a beautiful face or a pomegranate.  I said the food was delicious!  Or at least I thought I did.  Ugh...I still have so much to learn.

All I wanted to do was pay this sweet man a compliment on his food.

Oh well.  Face or food.  I guess I complimented him either way.

Not So Yummy, Yummy Dough

One thing I love about Korea is the variety of things you can buy here.  They literally have so many things for sale that I've never found in the States.  One of our latest finds was this stuff called Yummy Dough.  I bought it for the kids because they love playdough, and we always use the little playdough phrase, "Fun to play with, not to eat" when we're playing with it.  So I thought great; Yummy Dough will be "fun to play with AND to eat!"  

It conveniently happened that it was Family Home Evening that night, so we used our new found Yummy Dough for activity and treat.  

Here's Emma holding a ball of it.  It came in yellow, red, and blue.  We were pretty impressed because it really felt and worked just like playdough.  

We broke out Emma's little playdough food molding kit, and had fun making playdough food that we would actually be able to eat.  Super fun!

Ryan made this fun little hamburger, complete with lettuce and cheese.  

We made lots of fun foods:  strawberries, pizzas, cookies, etc.  Then it was time to bake.  I was a little skeptical about how this was going to cook.  I thought it would definitely lose a little of its shape, but it didn't.  It came out of the oven looking the same way it went in!  The only difference was the yellow was slightly darker.  I was very impressed with our new find...until we ate it.  As Ali said, "This stuff tastes just like I've always imagined playdough to taste."  It was disgusting!  Well, I guess Yummy Dough isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Turns out this stuff is also "Fun to playwith, not to eat."  Bummer.