Seoul and Suwan Korea

April 2009

We got back from our vacation in Seoul and Suwan a couple of days ago. It was fantastic! We had a chance to see Nanta- which had the boys laughing, clapping, engaged and mesmorized. It helped that our seats were 3rd row, center section.

The boys loved Korean food and had fun tasting all sorts of kimchee. I loved it even more considering I went through a couple of months of minimal eating.

Tomoya had a lot of space to run around, it was very pedestrian friendly at the center of the city. Suwan was an hour subway ride. The world heritage fortress had a beautiful view and of course lots of space for the boys to move. Tomo's request was to see the farmers dance and totem poles which was easily accomplished by a visit to the cultural village ( I bought him a picture book about Korea about a month before we went- so he knew exactly what he wanted to do and see and made his experience more enriching). Korean traditional dance and music is dynamic and the colours used in clothing and architecture are bright and bold. It was a short flight from Japan but a world away. Reo enjoyed his time there but spent alot of time sleeping in his stroller at the most unfortunate times- usually at places where he would have loved to wander around on his little legs. Instead he slept through much of that and woke up often in places where he had limited freedom.

From the markets, the spicy and visually enticing food, the exciting colours, movements, much more aggressive language than I am use to and charming restaurants and teashops- Seoul ended up being a wonderful trip for the kids and a great short refreshing vacation for the adults.