Busan Aquarium

This weekend we decided to visit the Busan aquarium.  The kids had a great time looking at all of the sea creatures, especially the sharks!

AHHH SHARK!

Looking at the first exhibit

Penguins!

Touching the starfish

Check out my those teeth!

Jack was actually scared of the fish..

CUDDLE FISH!!!!

Pretty cool sea horse display

Hey look Lindsey, it's your boyfriend!

Jack & Joey loved the sharks!!

Finless porpoise (missing the top fin) 

Not in much of a writing mood so I'll just add some more pictures :)

panoramic picture of the beach--andy tried to move out of it--didn't quite work ;)

Busan streets

Chewing on their toys

Jack is such a such a stinker

Jack

Joey - I should have cleaned his mouth first haha- he just had chocolate ice cream

Weekend fun

This weekend was full of fun!  Friday night - I think? we went out to dinner with one of Andy's work friends and his wife and son.  It was nice to meet someone else from my neck of the woods and the food--mainly duck-- was yummy!  We cooked it all in front of us.  If you look closely you'll notice that the mickey mouse chicken nuggets cooking too.  We knew Jack and Joey wouldn't touch the food there so we came prepared.  They wouldn't eat them until we cooked them like we were cooking our food haha. Kids!

Saturday we went to the Spring Festival.  It's an annual Hyundai event filled with races, food, fun, ect. You are split into teams depending on shirt color --I'm guessing the shirt colors are various shipyards?   We had a great time enjoying the festivities :)

That was the best photo I could get out of Joey, the sun was a bit bright for him.  While we were at the festival we met some of the missionaries in the Ulsan area.  There were 2 Americans, one from California and the other from Utah.

To celebrate Mother's Day we all went out to see "Iron Man 3" at our local cinema.

  It's a small, only 2 theaters with assigned seats.  It costs about 7,000KRW per ticket (about $7) and the large drinks are 2,000KRW ($2).  What's really neat about the drinks is that they have a place for 2 straws, great for sharing!

They also offer both salty and sweet popcorn. YUM!  Jackson really liked the movie, it was so much fun to watch his reaction to the differrent parts in the movie.  We had to cover his eyes a few times haha.  Joey, who actually likes Iron Man more than Jack, wanted to go home about half way through.

One of the cool things about Korea is that almost everyone delivers in here.  McDonalds delivers 24/7.  As long as you order at least 7,000KRW they will bring it right to your door. (Even if it does take an 1 1/2 hours on a Saturday afternoon haha).  Anyone who knows me well knows that if I'm eating McDonalds, I need my BBQ sauce.  Needless to say they didn't have it here, it was a tad disappointing.    Imagine my surprise when I saw it on the online menu!! WOOOHOO!

                                           The mcdonalds delivery scooter outside our apt

                                                 BBQ Sauce - tastes exactly the same as home

We're Here!

So I promised a lot of people that I'd start a blog when I moved to South Korea and I've successfully put it off until now :) Lucky for you!

The plane ride went better than expected, a little sleep deprivation but overall the kids did great.  They didn't complain about their ears hurting like I was worried about or get too crazy.  They lived on snacks for most of the 24+ hour trip because they wouldn't touch the food served to them on the plane.

We live in the Hyundai Foreigners Compound.  It's a gated facility for expats consisting of several apartment buildings, bungalows, HFS (hyundai foreign school) and a clubhouse.  It's fenced and has guards stationed at the entrances for security. There are a few playgrounds throughout the  compound, the one in the picture below is just down the hill from the building we live (Y block).  You can see the building in the background if you look closely.

The boys are thriving here.  They go school 3 hours/day monday through friday.  Their teachers are wonderful and they are learing a lot.  I haven't heard any complaints of missing Texas.  I honestly think Jackson had a harder time when we moved from our house on Monteith to the one on Owens Creek :)

We recently went to the Ulsan Whale festival which celebrates - you guessed it - Ulsan's whaling history.  It can be a bit controversial because whale fishing isn't exactly smiled upon now - - we didn't eat any whale.  Overall it was a nice family outing learning about its history.  We flew rockets, participated in the parade, and did some cool sand crafts.

Church here is very different.  The ward we are in is non-English speaking so that's been a little difficult.  The closest English speaking ward is about 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive.  I'm sure we'll make the drive at least once--maybe every Sunday after that if it suits us better.  For some reason I got very emotional being there. It was hard to sit through sacrament meeting where I didn't understand a single word spoken.  Here's an interesting fact - the missionaries here can't shake women's hands.  I made that mistake and was quickly told that it's not done here.  In fact, I don't think any of the men here shake hands with women.