Beating the heat

Between packing for my business trip to Hong Kong and getting ready for tonight's dinner party, we made time to come down to the river. The water has warmed up a lot in the last week; it was pretty cold right after the big storm, but now the reservoir has been warming in the sun. Haley is finding litter to remove from the river.

Heating Up

Current temperature: 88 F (31 C)

Heat index: 99 F (37 C)

Yuck :p

Marilynn's Visit to Korea (Guest Post)

Shortly after I got to Korea we went up to Seoul for four days.  We were visiting some SCA friends of Meg's at Osan Air Base, so stayed in a hotel they recommended in the bar district just outside the Osan Main Gate.  Here is Meg with a street vendor just outside the main gate:

I was a little unsure about the hotel when I heard it was in "the bar district," but it turned out to be really nice and had a beautiful swimming pool that Meg and I had all to ourselves at ten in the morning:

We stayed there for two days then took the subway 1 1/2 hours north (still in Seoul, which is a huge city of 10 1/2 million) to a chic hotel in the center of Seoul that even had a bidet with seats that would heat up and many options for spraying various parts of one's bottom that I was not quite up to trying:

While in Seoul we went up in the Seoul Tower.  Here is a shot of it as we were climbing up to it and another of Seoul from the observation deck of the tower:

While in Seoul we also visited the Changdeokgung Palace, which dates from 1405.  Here is Meg in the palace and me in front of the main gate:

My favorite part of the visit was back in Busan just hanging out with Meg and Haley, cooking, eating, talking, and poking about their neighborhood:

We visited the Old Market near their apartment.  Here are fresh fish and eels and fresh vegetables for sale in the market:

Busan is a metropolitan city of 2 1/2 million.  Here is a view towards the waterfront taken from the top of Meg and Haley's 25-story apartment building:

But it is also a very green city; especially in Haeundae, Meg and Haley's part of the city, there were many walking paths shaded by trees and decorated with rock gardens and flowers.  Meg and I enjoyed taking the paths just to see where they would lead.  There are also playgrounds and exercise parks on almost every block:

Meg had long wanted to follow the path beside the river behind her apartment complex uphill to the mountain beyond.  Here are some photos from that climb:

Meg and I also walked to Haeundae Beach.  Though it was a blustery day with a storm coming in, I dipped my toes in this side of the Pacific just to be able to say I had and Meg actually got in with her bathing suit: 

 Afterwards, we walked to a traditional Korean spa near the beach.  We were the only Caucasians in the spa.  It was a women-only naked spa and it was clear to the rest of the women that we didn't know the protocol, but they were very welcoming and helpful to us (I think partially because they could see that we were a mother and daughter together.)  One scrubbed down very, very clean in showers before entering the spa area where there were soaking pools from very, very hot to very cool and saunas of varying temperatures.  It was clear that it was a place for female bonding, with all ages from little toddlers to grannies so stooped over they needed to be helped to walk.  Meg loved it and would have stayed the whole four hours allowed if I hadn't tired of it sooner.

On one of my last days, we went with Haley to Shingesae, proclaimed by the Guinness Book of Records to be the largest department store in the world: 

And then we spent an hour at the karaoke studio Haley and her friends like to sing at:

It was altogether a wonderful visit!