Lunar New Year

Regarding my mom: She is still in the hospital. They had an expected discharge date late last week, but she has had trouble with an infection and modification to medicine dosage - a couple of things like that. I think it's been fairly disheartening compared to expecting it would be a big step in the "improving" direction once the colon was removed.

There was a 2 day national holiday for the lunar new year, and Michael had M-W off from school. People tend to join their families like a major holiday in September, and the news reports lots of traffic jams. I'd been sick over the weekend (I think something I ate), so Monday we still took it kind of easy. Nearly everything was closed, but not Lotte Mart and the restaurants under the same roof ... so we ate at TGIFs. There was only one other table. I felt bad for the people working. A friend had brought a DVD player for us recently. We've asked a couple times that someone from facilities maintenance look at our tv, and it turns out someone did. I just told Michael to see if he could get the DVD to play. He could, so after dinner we had hot chocolate and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We have not made a very big dent in the box of hot choc. from Costco. A few more movies will make some of the cold winter days and nights go by faster, but I have to figure out where to rent.

Tuesday we went to Busan for a 2:00 performance of Cats. It was marvelous. I had never seen it. We read online to find out the basic plot, which I would do even for a show in English. That it was in Korean made us focus more on dancing, just enjoying the music, etc. Michael liked it a lot too. Because of the holiday, we didn't try to find any interesting restaurants. We ate at the train station next to our hotel twice - both us ordering the same thing for lunch and dinner (BK Whopper Junior; Korean mild soup with dried fish; guess who ate which?!).

Tuesday we took the subway to the world's biggest department store. It was quite a site. My favorite part was the basement level food, but I did enjoy the glamour of the middle of the building being open. It's like other department stores in Korea: the brands all rent some space and hire their own employees. Michael got a new pair of sport shoes. We were happy to find 290 cm/US size 11. Usually 280 is the largest. He also bought the 6th Harry Potter book. He's going to end up reading all of them over about a 6 week time period. Miss Jolynn got him started! I told him when I read the books, I had to wait for the next one to be published. I must have been feeling strange because in the basement level for lunch because I was the one who suggested the hot dog to go with the tuna sandwich Michael ordered. It was the mustard on top that looked so good. We shared - Korean style and our style too. We got home about 4:00. The taxi ride from the KTX station to our apartment takes longer and costs more than the KTX from Busan. It's just a 20 minute ride on the KTX. Back to school and work tomorrow. It's double day at school: the kids have 2 periods each of math and IPC.

"IPC" reminds me. Their current topic is Governments and Rulers. The kids had to write a speech and then deliver it. Michael was elected the president in his class. His speech started, "My name is Michael Key, and I am the key to your future." His teacher told me when I was at school for lunch duty a couple days later. Michael did tell me he got star of the week last week. His (new) math teacher wrote that it was for "being a good role model, his positive attitude, and working well in every lesson." Michael actually told me, and I think it's partly because he is so pleased with the new math teacher, Mr. MacFarlane. Michael liked the teacher in the fall, but she left. For 6-8 weeks they were without a dedicated teacher, and nothing worthwhile really seemed to be going on. I am glad things are much better in math.

Take care and God bless. Kim