This past week has been a busy one on more than a few levels. Last sunday was Easter and we spent the day at my brother's house. He lives in the central valley of California on farm land. We got home late and the blog didn't happen. It is happening right now, however. Easter (부활절) is not really celebrated in Korea. Unless things have changed dramatically since I lived in Korea, Easter is only celebrated by a special Sunday service in christian denominations. There is no Easter bunny or egg hunt or any of the other commercial entrapments that exist here in America. When we get together as a family for Easter we usually have an Easter egg hunt. My brother's house is ideally suited for an egg hunt because he has a large, grassy yard around... Show more

Wow, I just uploaded this post and it disappeared! Gone! So here it goes again in a shortened version. I posted about the Korean Children's Orchedstra coming to town a while back but I didn't get much feedback on it. I said I would post some instrument pictures to the forum but I am still in that going to mode... Here are some pictures from the performance rehearsal. The show opened with drums: Here is Stephanie practicing the 해금: The 태평소 soloist: Here is an interesting variation on the traditional 가야금. It has 25 strings instead of 12. The North Korean version has 24 strings. I will get these into the forum too. Soon.

We recently had a discussion about house size with our homestay guest. He indicated that he lives in a 32 평 apartment but his best friend lives in a 100 평 주택 (house). One 평 equals about 3.3 square meters or 35.5 square feet. Therefore, his apartment is about 1,100 square feet and his friends house is 3,550 square feet! He says his friend's house is three stories and that his friends family is rich. I would think that having a house of that size in Korea would qualify as being rich. A 32 평 apartment in Korea is above average in size, even though by American standards it is small. We just moved out of a 1400 sq. ft.  house and it felt very small. Perhaps that is because there were six of us living there (we have four children). While... Show more

Winters in Korea are cold. When I lived in Korea the one thing that kept the winters bearable was the warm floors. Korea uses, I think universally, radiant heat as its primary heat source. The comfort of having warmfloors heating the house without the noise and discomfort of having forced air is really nice. The one thing that I did not like about radiant heat in Korea was having to rotate the 연탄 (coal briquettes). I don't think 얀탄 are very popular in Korea right now though. I think it used to be that every year there were news reports of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning from 얀탄. Nowadays the floors are heated primarily from a gas boiler. We finished building our house last year and we decided that our primary source of heat... Show more

First, I apologize for not getting a post out last week. It was a holiday/long weekend here and well, time just got away from me. I know, no excuses... Our house guest/extra child has been adapting to life in the Unites States quite well, sometimes too well. He is a very good follower so he is susceptible to peer pressure more than most. He recently got in trouble for booing at a school assembly. Hey, he was just having fun with his friends and he says those friends are more fun. Right. I am sure they are. He is, on the other hand, the best soccer player among kids his age.  As far as Korean goes, I am finding it interesting the holes that I have in my vocabulary as well as in our "exchange student's". This past week we were able to... Show more