Today was a recovery day. It was raining out all morning and we'd been in the car all day yesterday. My b-mom was at work. The arboretum has 3 teams that rotate coverage on the weekends and this was her turn. I hadn't showered in 3 days so I was looking forward to a nice long one. My b-dad was home though, and sister showed her face by noon. I had planned on getting the boys some soccer shirts, thinking it'd be like the US and they'd be easily found. Not so much. At least not in kids sizes. Not even the Korean Football Association had them. So I will have to find them something else. But searching on the internet with my b-dad was painful. I don't even read Korean and I could point where to go on the Nike website. After a while, I gave up. The shirts in kids sizes really do not exist, or at least they are not the real thing. Thankfully I have Amazon, I can buy them when I get home if I need to.
My b-dad had pulled me into the office area just as I was about to dry my hair then eat. So while he was still looking for shirts, I started eating. Chapchae is a noodle dish I've had before. I heard my b-mom cooking early in the morning and she had left a plate of it on the table for me. I assumed this was the main dish so just started eating. My b-dad finally started giving up on the search also, and came out to tell me that the chapchae was a side dish. He started laughing and called my b-mom to tell her. Of course, I should have realized you never not have all the side dishes and the MAIN dish which was soup. Oops. Both of them do this thing where it's like I can't eat fast enough. Like this morning, I was eating the chapchae, then he came out to serve the main dish. So I started eating that and then he told me to eat the chapchae. It's like I'd forget or something. I had brought some smoked salmon which he liked a lot. Salmon is not a common fish here, but he did tell me he saw on tv a bear trying to catch salmon.
Around 3 he was getting a little stir crazy. Once it stopped raining we left for lunch. We tried to go to this outlet mall which on the weekends was a convention center. He didn't know this. So we ended up going to a movie and lunch. Why not have pizza and see Battleship? So fun fact about parking garages in Korea. Parking seems to be a problem here, too many people and not enough spaces. The solution?
People who park in front of the cars, or perpendicular to the cars if you want to be technical, leave their car in neutral after parking. This way if you're blocking someone in. They can just push your car out of the way. I don't think there are many people in the US who would be very pleased if someone moved their car.
The lunch deal he picked was a small bulgogi pizza and spaghetti. This restaurant surprisingly didn't have chopsticks anywhere. So it was fork and knife time. I didn't think of it, but he didn't know how to use a fork. Like actually use one. I just assumed he knew how because he has a couple at home. I started cutting my pizza with my fork and he was trying to use his knife and fork. Not very successfully though. I showed him how to cut with the side of the fork which he liked better. Watching him eat spaghetti was fun. Korean noodles are usually in a soup and much thinner. You also just grab some with your sticks and shove it in your mouth. Spaghetti is different. He tried just jabbing his fork in like a chopstick and eating that way. I showed him how to twirl the noodle with your fork. I even showed him how to with a spoon. He mentioned that the pizza was not spicy. I was happy to have a break from the burning feeling after every meal. He then put something tabasco on it. I told him to do a little at a time, but he could probably handle it. He mentioned that with Korean noodles, twirling is impossible. I just wanted to put him out of his misery and find some chopsticks. We got to the movie theater and once again we were the only father-daughter there. He noticed this time and said "Many couples".
Battleship was super cheesy. Entertaining but it sort of makes us Americans seem very cliche. There was a bilateral AK guy in it who helps save the day so I explained to him that's what I do. On the way home he said that only in America is that type of movie possible. I think he was talking about the graphics. He started asking about the knee used in the movie so I tried to explain the best I could what it is. He said he does hydraulics and parametrics at work so I think he sort of understood. We were stopped next to a BMW. He said this was foolish. If someone likes speed, BMW is a foolish buy. The tires don't match the car and the gas is bad. And once you have it home, many payments. I had always thought BMW's were a racing style car. Guess I'm wrong.
Once we got home, my b-mother and b-sister were already lounging around. She actually didn't try to feed me this time which was a relief. After eating so many carbs all of a sudden I was very full. So we just hung out, watched tv and took pictures. My b-mother has a habit of cleaning out her closet when I'm here and so far I have a down jacket, a rain jacket, red ginseng, chopsticks, and the bookmarks we made. And the 4 language books. I think I may be checking my bag on the way home.
My brother is coming home on Friday. He is in school/"testing" right now and comes home on the weekends. It'll be good to see everyone before I leave and have the fam together. Sadly it will only be for one day.
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