Friday, April 30, 2010

A Night on the Town

The World Expo opened today in Shanghai, and here we are in Tokyo. Work and school are shut down for the first few days of the expo -- to control traffic -- so we took a short trip to Tokyo.

These are some images from our first night on the town. My biggest first impressions include two doggies being pushed in a pink stroller like twins, a store exclusively for doggy clothes, and the appeal of BRIGHT and COLORFUL tennis shoes! Converse are all the rage here and in Seoul. So glad I bought some pink ones at TJ Maxx before left!

Off to the salt and tobacco museum this afternoon, huh? Jeff wants to go!











Saturday, April 17, 2010

A Visit to Seoul

We spent the Easter weekend in Seoul. It is a quick, 2 hour, flight from Shanghai. We visited the folk village, two palaces and one fort. This fit in very nicely with Qi Qi's recent studying of castles. When we visited the fort, there were masses of school kids there and they were very intrigued by the kids. They were so adorable -- a group of about 10 young girl students were especially interested in Jin, Qi and Sun. The girls were eery in the way they spoke, laughed and gestured in unison! Moreover, they all were in their school uniforms which includes the requirement to have the exact same haircut -- a bob with bangs! Qi Qi proved to be the most outgoing -- who would have thought.

Jin ate his way through the trip, eating as much kimchi, Bulgogi, Bi Bim Bop, and korean BBQ as he could fit into his stomache. He loves Korean food and simply can't get enough of it.

We are going to go back to Korea in June and have a short visit with the kids' foster parents. That should be nice. It is really a beautiful city, clean and modern and surrounded by mountains and outlined by the Han River. Lots to enjoy.

One night, we took in a show called "Nanta" which was a musical comedy about 4 cooks. Very similar to Triple Espresso in Minneapolis. Sunny, qi and I sat in the front row so everyone could see well, and we were showered in chopped lettuce and cabbage at one point. The kids loved the silly humor. I will try to find a link to that show and see if I can post it here somehow. You can find lots of video clips on the internet for this show, just do a google video search for "Nanta." Here is one good linke I found for a UTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XQ-hFrhE_Q. You can look at the others that show up when you go to this video and you will get a good sense of the show.

More later....