Weekend adventures.

Hello.  I am sitting here trying to figure out what to write as we haven't done much. The past week is boring and I am bored. I am so ready to be in our own place with our own things. We will move into our apartment on April 1.  I am ready to have an oven again so that I can do some baking and cooking. There is only so much one can do with a 2 top burner and microwave. One also needs a commissary that has foods that fit these needs.  We did make it down to the market last week for fresh fruit. I was able to pick up about 2 dozen tangerines, 3 huge apples, huge kiwis and 2-3 dozen strawberries for 25,000 won, about $22.00. Not to bad if you ask me. Here, on post,  they wanted $4.00/lb for grapes and that is just outrageous!!  I will have to take the camera and get pictures so you can see all of the nice goodies!! It is much cheaper here to go to the market for fruits and veggies then to by them at the store. And you get a lot more at a better quality. I will have to learn the different fish names in Korean as there was a lot of fresh fish as well.  I am trying to get Zane to go to the market with me this morning but he keeps telling me, "it is too dangerous. Go with daddy."  I am hoping that one of these days he will get over this fear of being here and used to all the people. He seems to have no problem if we are both with him when we are out.

This past weekend we had a few adventures on the public transportation system here in Waegwan/Daegu area. Saturday night we went to Daegu for a farewell dinner for the warrant Jim replaced. It was an interesting eating dinner at TGI Friday's and Zane was a huge hit. I think that we had such good service because he was with us and Korean's have this things with American children especially blond children. It is much more expensive to eat at Friday's here then in the states and will only happen once in a blue moon. Zane was given balloons at dinner, checked out others eating and they all loved him. Not a good thing when trying to instill table manners!!  Oh yeah, we had fun trying to find the restaurant as we were told it was on the 7th floor of the train station so we checked out the Korean department store, Lotte, and finally had to ask. It was on the 8th floor not the 7th, silly Americans. After dinner we went back down to the train station to get tickets back home only to find out we had a 45 min wait. Well needless to say Zane made it all fun and games. He ran around the waiting area and had everyone laughing at him and saying how cute he is!!  Again, doesn't help when trying to instill good behavior in a child.  He had been playing with his balloon and let go so it floated up to the ceiling. An older Korean gentleman had been paying attention to Zane and watching him, after his balloon floated away he gave him 2,000 won to buy a new one. We finally got on our train at 2135(9:35) and headed back to our home away from home.

Sunday was another adventure. We went back to Daegu on the train but first had to stop at the local bakery, good stuff, and then get some kim bop, like sushi. We were headed back to Daegu to have dinner with friends in their new apartment. We had to take many different means of transportation as they live in a new area of Daegu. They have a very nice apartment on the 18th floor of a building and I am so glad we are on the 2nd floor of only 6. Anyway, we took the train to Daegu and then had to switch to the subway. There are only two subway lines in Daegu. We got our tickets and went down to wait for the train only to realize that we were on the wrong side and would be going the wrong way. We got over to the right side and caught our subway. Zane did enjoy the subway as it went "super fast." We got off the subway at the closest stop to our friends house and had to catch a taxi to finish our trip. We had a very nice time at dinner and eventually had to head home as someone was getting very tired, no nap that day. We caught a taxi back to the train station only to learn that the next train to Waegwan didn't leave for another 1 and a half. We decided we didn't want to wait at the train station after the night before so we took a cap back to base. It wasn't a bad cab ride or overly costly. We got back to the hotel 35 min before the train was even scheduled to leave.  I am not sure how many more train rides we will have to take or bus rides as one of us is now a licensed driver here in Korea and it isn't me. Right now there is no point in me taking the drivers test as the car Jim has is manual transmission and I don't know how to drive the car. Besides the fact that the public transportation here is great and my legs work just as well. Now pushing the stroller is another feat as the sidewalks here were not meant for strollers. We are working on getting Zane to attempt to walk more but he ends up wanting to be carried. It will take time but we will get there hopefully sooner then later.

There aren't any pictures for this post. Hope everyone is doing well.

Love you and miss you all,
Liz, Jim and Zane