Seolleong Tombs and Kimchi Museum

Yesterday we went for an outing. First we went to Royal Tombs right in the heart of Seoul.

Since Judah is a little bigger now, we can use the Baby Bjorn carrier

The tombs are called the Seolleong Tombs. King Seongjong and his wife Queen Jeonghyeon are buried there as well as their son.

You can walk on the King's path on the right but you can't walk on the Spirit road on the left.

King Seongjong's tomb

 There's a reason why Koreans bury their dead in a mound on a hill but I can't remember why. Good thing Korea is 80% mountains because they have a lot of people to bury here!

Queen Jeonghyeon's tomb

After we got nice and hot outside, we headed to the air conditioned COEX Mall, which is apparently Asia's largest underground shopping mall with an area of about 85,000 square meters.COEX Mall holds the Kimchi museum. We knew we had to visit it!

This is what we think of Kimchi. Actually it's reversed...I'm ok with Kimchi...Taylor hates it.

Cabbage Kimchi is not the only kind. There are dozens of varieties of Kimchi.

My favorite is the white cabbage kimchi because it's not spicy and not fishy tasting.

Taylor's favorite is cucumber kimchi

 

Most Koreans have a Kimchi fridge. It is very necessary to separate kimchi from everything else
in your refrigerator. If you don't, it will flavor everything in the fridge with its nasty kimchi taste.

COEX Mall has an awesome nursing moms room

Lastly, we went to TGI Fridays for dinner. Judah didn't really care about it too much.

4 weeks old

sleeping through church

Apple baby

Oops..mommy was eating a sample at Costco and dropped it down on baby

learning to use chopsticks at an early age

Prayers needed

Please pray for our sister, Lauren. She just lost her beloved little baby puppy, Savannah. She only had Savannah for a week and she passed away today in an accident.

RIP Savannah

First Doctor Appointment

Today Judah had his first doctor appointment. This was his first time ever seeing the doctor. Everything checked out great. He is growing well, everything in his body is functioning well, his coloring is good, etc. He got an A+.

 Dr. Yoo is American Board of Pediatrics certified and she practiced in the US for 10 years as a Pediatrician.

Since Judah is 1 month old now, we have started letting him use a pacifier. I wanted to wait until he was 6 weeks, but we
made it to 4 at least.

She's legit.

Insadong Market

Yesterday we went to Insadong Market. According to Wikipedia, it holds 40% of the nation's antique shops and art galleries as well as 90% of the traditional stationary shops. It's also known for having a lot of tea.

She bought fried Octopus on a skewer and she liked it!

I love the lady's face here. This was after she told my mom the red sauce is very spicy and my mom tried it and liked it. Koreans tend to think that foreigners cannot handle their spicy food. I definitely can't but some of the foreigners can!

We found this really cute little tea shop

Mom got really fresh green tea

I got iced Pear Tea

Lots of tea at Insadong Market!

These guys make some kind of traditional dessert made with honey and corn flour. We bought some to try.

This has been a really strange summer. Normally right now it's typhoon season and rains pretty
much all day every day. But much like the midwest, we are experiencing far less rain fall this
summer. We're not having a drought- it's still raining every few days, but nothing like years previous.
This will probably be the summer that everyone looks back and says "remember that weird summer in
2012 when it hardly rained?" I'm so thankful for it though because I hate rain!