Zoe and I took the train up to Seoul Children’s Grand Park today. It was quite fun! There is a lot of construction going on as they rebuild an ampitheater and some other buildings, but it’s still nice. There is no fee to get into the park or the arboretum or the zoo! The zoo isn’t super great for the animals, but small enclosures mean closer views for us. It’s also not a hands-off kind of a place; there are little vending machines with animal snacks to throw at the monkeys. It’ actually hysterical and a few would do a little trick for the treat. Of course this would never happen in an American zoo, so we had to try it. Zoe just squealed as I threw snacks at the monkey and he caught them! The zoo also has camel and miniature horse rides. Zoe really wanted to ride the camel, but they wouldn’t let her since she was too small. The pony ride seemed to satisfy her! And as if that isn’t enough excitemetn there is an animal show called Anistory; this is like a Disney movie meets a 1930’s circus side show. It was quite funny and enjoyable. There was a ‘Cinderella’ kind of story plot, but many monkeys came out dressed as the other Disney princesses doing tricks, too. There was also a funny flock of ducks that did a feature swim-by-the-audience at the beginning. 5 of them, however, decided to just hang out in the pool the rest of the show and kept quack – interrupting. The show featured a huge variety of semi-trained animals like pigs, birds, monkeys, sea lions, ducks, and even a bunch of guinea pigs! After the show we visited the big warm greenhouse of the arboretum; Zoe fell asleep so we headed home. The train was packed on the way home, but Zoe was passed out in the stroller so I just pushed my way through. It was there amongst the crowds of Koreans that I remembered I needed to go to the base’s practice evacuation today…ooops! I nearly panicked. We got home and I hastily checked my email, whew, we had til 10pm. So, we packed our bag and went on base to do that; I promised Zoe ice cream while we were there and she behaved so well. Afterward, I realized the Baskin Robbins was closed and I didn’t want to mess with walking to the one off base since it would take so long AND it was cold and dark out AND the Saturday party crowd was roving… so we drove to the Burger King where I figured a shake would suffice. They were also closed, so she had a cheesecake from the adjoining Popeyes. I mushed it up and called it ice cream. She loved it and was happy!

Talked to Bryan this evening from Thailand. today he had quite an adventure riding public transportation to and from a silk market. He bough me a bunch of silks for cheap, which I’m very excited about. He is also growing a mustach for Mustach March.