31 Mar 2014 - Birthday celebration in school

Few days back, Javier had been telling me this.......
Javier:"Papa, I know you are not going to celebrate my birthday in school....."
He had been saying negative remarks recently and in Chinese, it's called "讲反话"!
Knowing his intention, I brought a cake to his school so that he will not feel disappointed.

Students from both K1 and K2 classes came together to sing a birthday song for Javier.

The cake was very colourful and taste good.  Many children had asked for more after finishing a piece.

After enjoying the cakes, Javier started giving out gift bags to his classmates.

Happy Birthday, Javier!  You are 5 years old now!

30 Mar 2014 - Javier having toothache

Recently Javier had been complaining about toothache.  So I brought him to a dentist today for a check.  This is Javier's first time visiting a dentist and he was pretty nervous.

I thought Javier will "struggle" during the checks but surprisingly, he was very cooperative.

The check showed that he had about 4 teeth decaying.  One of them, which is the one that Javier was feeling the pain, was quite bad and may requires root canal procedure.  As there was swelling on the gum around that tooth, the dentist prescribed anti-biotics and hopefully the swelling can be brought down.  She suggested we come back for a review one week later.  If the swelling had gone down by then, she will try to "fix" the three decayed teeth and then refer to her colleague for the root canal assessment.

After the session, the dentist gave Javier a balloon.  Javier chose the pink color balloon and told the dentist that pink is his sister's favourite color.  Good boy, Javier!

29 Mar 2014 - Birthday celebration at home

We had a little gathering at my place to celebrate Javier's 5th birthday.  His actual birthday is two days later on a Monday.  As such, we decided to celebrate it earlier with my family.

Javier was throwing a tantrum when we were about to sing the birthday song.  He tried to lock himself in his room and I spent quite sometimes before I manage to convince him out.  Now you know why he looked this way in the below photo........  Cheer up, boy!

23 Mar 2014 - Home sweet home

This was our flight home and marked the end of our short trip to Seoul.  Though this trip is short, it's actually one of the more enjoyable one for all of us.  I'm sure we will be back here some day.  Bye Seoul!

As it was a late flight, we reached home at around 1:30am.

22 Mar 2014 - Experiencing Traditional Korean Handicraft at the airport

As we still have quite some times before boarding the plane, we walked around the transit area at Incheon International Airport.  There is an area called the Traditional Korean Cultural Experience Zone where visitors can learn how to make traditional artifacts and bring them home.  Jerlene and mommy had a hands on experience in making paper dolls.

Let's take a look at their end products.

Javier and myself tried the traditional art paintings.  As Javier did not know how to apply different pressure on the paper, his painting consists of black spots everywhere.

I did mine with much concentration and here's my end product.  Nice?

22 Mar 2014 - Last minute shopping at D-Cube Mall

Our flight home today departs in the evening.  As such, we still have slightly more than half a day to shop around D Cube City.

We bought a few dresses and shirts for Jerlene and Javier.  We checked out of the hotel and left our luggage with the concierge before going for our lunch,

We left D Cube City at about 3:30pm and the bus journey took longer than expected as the traffic towards the airport was pretty heavy.

21 Mar 2014 - Our "catch" from today's shopping

Before returning to our hotel room. Jerlene and Javier wanted me to take a picture of them "jumping" off the ground at the hotel lobby.

Once we entered our room, my two angels immediately jumped onto the bed with their toys.  The next moment, they started feasting on the seaweed that we had bought from the supermarket in D Cube City.

 The following were what we had bought today.  First are the toys that we bought from Dongdaemun.

We also bought strawberries from Dongdaemun and we saw the same pack selling at the D Cube City supermarket at almost twice the price.

 And the following were from Myeongdong.

21 Mar 2014 - Myeongdong night shopping

From Dongdaemun, we took the subway to Myeongdong and our main objective is to"hunt" for good street food.  This place did not change very much since Tracy and I were here about 14 years ago.  As we walked down the street, Jerlene had a chance to take a photo with her virtual friend Mario!

From that point, we started our street food hunt.  We tried the cuttlefish as well as the meat balls stick.

However, Jerlene and Javier's favourite was the deep fried potatoes.

When we first reached Myeongdong, we were all very tired after a whole afternoon walk in Dongdaemun.  But the deep fried potatoes seemed to have some rejuvenating effect and after eating it, we were all full of energy again.  This is especially so for Javier who started performing street dance along the busy Myeongdong street.

After all those street food, we were still a bit hungry and had some donuts at Dunkin' Cafe.

By then, the street started to get busier.  We tried to get some good bargain before leaving for our hotel.  This marked our last night of our Seoul trip.

21 Mar 2014 - Dongdaemun Market shopping

Our plan for today is to visit the Toys and Stationery Wholesale Market at Dongdaemun.  We took the subway to Dongdaemun station and took exit 4.  Once out of the station, continue to walk along the street till you see Donkil Pharmacy.  Turn into the lane on the right and we were there.

On both sides of the lane were stalls selling all sorts of toys and stationery.

Jerlene and Javier do not usually enjoy shopping with us but not this time.  They were very busy going from stalls to stalls searching for their "favourite" toys.

As we walked further into the lane, we came to a bright yellow shop with "LEGO" banners all over the place.  Yes, this shop sold all sorts of Lego bricks and it's cheaper by about 30%-40% as compared to buying it elsewhere.

21 Mar 2014 - Jerlene loves Octopus tentacles

After breakfast today, we bought a packet of grilled octopus tentacles from a stall in D Cube City.  It smells and taste good.  I thought the kids wouldn't dare to eat it but surprisingly, Jerlene loves it very much!  Javier refuse to try as usual.

20 Mar 2014 - Lotte World

After exiting Pororo Park at abour 3:30pm, we went over to the ticketing booth of Lotte World to purchase the Nighttime Day-Pass which allow us to enter the theme park after 4pm but at a discounted price.  As we still have about 30mins before we can enter the park, we had some light meals at Lotteria fastfood outlet nearby.

Lotte World is quite a huge theme park with both indoor and outdoor area.  We mainly stayed indoor because it was raining outdoor and worse is, it's freezing cold.  There is also an ice skating rink within the park.

As there are minimum height requirement for most of the thrill rides, we spent most of our time around the kiddie zone.  Even so, there are still a number of rides that Javier failed to meet the height requirement.  Below are some of the rides that Jerlene tooked again and again.  As there weren't many kids, there is no need to queue.

After getting "rejected" for several rides, Javier started to get emotional and refused to play anymore rides.  So Jerlene had to ride with mommy.

It was only when we came to an indoor playground when Javier decided to he's not going to waste anymore time.

At about 8pm, there was a parade at the centre of the park.  We sat at the front row and had an unblock view of all the colourful floats and performance.

At the finale of the parade, Jerlene and Javier even participated in the dance.  I have captured their dance in the following video.  Enjoy!  :-)

Guess what's Jerlene and Javier's favourite ride is?  It's the Adventure of Sinbad boat ride!  I thought they will be afraid of those eerie dark caves, skeletons and skulls etc.  Furthermore, there were a few sudden "drops" during the ride.  To our surprise, they had thoroughly enjoyed the ride and we took it more than once.

While waiting for the laser and light spectacular show, we went to the Garden Stage where there's a "Fairy Land" performance.

The laser and light show was ok but the kids did not really enjoy it.

By this time, the park will be closed in less than an hour.  So we decided to let Jerlene and Javier decide which rides they wanted to take for one last time.

We really played until all the rides had stopped operating and we were the last few to leave the park.  We bought some biscuits from Lotte Mart before taking the subway back to our hotel room.