Weekend 84 of 52+

Seonyudo Park

Ah, yeah. We had a weekend again. Can you believe it? Pregnancy and newborns put such a boundary on weekend making. Heck, there've been solid weeks I haven't left the house. But Joash is officially an infant now, at 12 weeks (don't even ask how that makes me feel), and we revisited Seonyudo Park as a family. We talked about just recreating all of our old weekends with the baby. That probably won't happen entirely, but here we've begun the effort.

The fun thing about having a baby is the desperation to capitalize on the moments between feeds. Luckily Joah skipped his morning nap on Sunday, so we were out of the house by 11. We went to Pizza School and GS 25 (convenience store) to forage for picnic foods. Then we hiked over the river, laden with pizza box, snack pack, diaper bag, and babe. We dodged many a bicyclist, some rude, others polite, some in biking costumes, others in civvies. Dang if distances don't seem longer with so much gear.

We settled in at the park in a seemingly abandoned spot and set up our space. The very second Joash wanted to eat, of course it's suddenly the most popular place in the park. And the poor kid screaming his blanket-covered face off. But we survived, didn't we? We also survived Dan dumping two liquids (Mt. Dew and water) on the mat, the latter of which soaked my bottom. It is ironic that it happened as I was attending to Joah's own soaked little bottom. Dan kept remarking, "And you're still not doing the weirdest thing in the park today." We saw some cos-players. We saw a photo club taking selcas with their hands covering their faces. We saw a girl wearing a long teal wig while dressed in a kimono and geta sandals.

It was a fantastic weekend, and we started our collection of pictures of Joash in front of Seoul-specific landscapes. I like to think he'll thank us for it later.

Weekend 13 of 52.

VIPs Fresh Life Restaurant, Soul Underground, Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine, Seonyudo Park


Friday was Dan's and my fifth anniversary. We ate where you eat for those sorts of occasions: VIPs (pronounced, as far as we can tell, not as the acronym, but as a word) Fresh Life Restaurant. It's a steak and salad buffet restaurant, and Dan and I have both been grieving each meal since not spent there. Koreans do salad buffet right. Maybe it's because every meal comes with a mini buffet of banchan. There were dark leafy greens and red cabbage, quails eggs and sesame dressing, all kinds of noodle sides and fried rice, always a tidy miso soup bar, even pizza and pasta. Our favorite part of the buffet was the soft taco station with chopped chicken and guacamole. Such a good idea, everyone, go to VIPs. We accidentally missed the dessert bar, but we will never again make such an error.

After dinner, we went to the Lotte Cinema in Hongdae. We intended to see "Date Night", but this theater was only showing a handful of movies and that wasn't one of them. So I broke my no-cartoons-except-for-Pixar movie theater rule and we saw "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D, and we enjoyed every bit of it.

Then we headed to Soul Underground for a nightcap, and we caught the end of a show and had a good chat with proprietor Shin about the Koreas and Korean politics. We always leave Soul Underground feeling more purposeful and un-alone here in Seoul.

Saturday we set out for a park at which to play my wooden anniversary gift to Dan: janggi, Korean chess. We walked through the Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine, a shrine to honor Catholic martyrs, and I didn't realize until online fact-checking after the fact that there is an entire museum we managed to miss. We settled ourselves under the bridge by the river, and Dan check-mated me, because I have never won a single game of chess (or checkers even) in my whole life.

We decided to check out Seonyudo Park, a domesticated island paradise in the middle of the Han river. We walked the bridge over and enjoyed a cool breeze and one of those "I can't believe that this is where we live" happy feelings. I am officially recommending Seonyudo Park to every person in Seoul. It's free, of course. There's a greenhouse with flowers and bumblebees, lotus ponds, strange industrial looking artifacts, a water play area (where Korean kids wear raincoats but never swimsuits), and lovers' picnics as far as the eye can see. It was such a peaceful, easy Saturday, and it's made this weekend one of our favorites so far.