We often go to the Natural History Museum near us in Seoul. It’s always fun for the kids and they enjoy the animal displays. Yul has started copying what Hugh does though, which is commenting on what animals he would like to eat. However, they are not the only ones who do it while there! I definitely hear others talking about what sea creatures, in particular, taste good. At least these just the taxidermy animals. I think it’s more annoying when it’s at a zoo or wildlife park.

There are cultural and historical reasons why Koreans seem obsessed with food. I can’t go into all the detail here, but it’s less weird to me now, after living in Korea for 10 years. But I have seen comments from those part of the Korean diaspora who can get quite angry at older relatives who make comments like this.

This comic has the English and Korean combined as that is how the moment is in real life. The bigger font is always the language that it was spoken in. This is a conversation in Korean but I am responding in English.

Also, a reminder that the majority of the conversation around my comics, now happens on social media rather than comment section here.

Are you planning your Korea trip again?

Did you have to cancel your trip to Korea? Are you planning on traveling to Korea soon? My parents are looking forward to coming back to Korea maybe early next year. I hope this video is helpful when planning your trip. A big tourist attraction in this area is Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is actually a huge area to walk around. People hire hanboks to wear and walk around the palace, but all that walking is going to make you hungry.

It’s convenient to head to this street and find a restaurant to eat at. Locals also eat here and there is a big range of food that will be satisfying, especially after all that walking. Even living in Seoul, I wasn’t that aware of this food street, but now I know! One of the great things about doing these tourism videos is that we learn something too, and in this case, we got a chance to actually go out as a family.

We recently visited Andong to make a video for Andong Tourism. We had never been as a family to Andong so it was nice to get out of Seoul for 2 days. Korea has no lockdowns or travel restrictions within the country. The three places we saw were absolutely beautiful and I’d love to go back in the future to explore more. Yul also enjoyed everywhere we went and it made me happy to see him enjoying nature and historical sites.

We also stayed in Hanok accommodation and you can see our tour of it in this video. We didn’t want to stay at a motel or hotel because there may be a lot of people, so this accommodation ended up being perfect . There was also a secret room!

We have a chat about positive things in South Korea when you are a parent. Every country has pros and cons, but we really love some of the pros in Korea and wanted to talk about them. When you live in another country you do end up being part of some expat communities whether in real life or online. Unfortunately some expat communities can be negative about EVERYTHING. That can be a slippery slope when people ONLY talk about negative things, especially when everyone views things through their own cultural lens. So we wanted to make sure we talk about and appreciate the things we do like in Korea.

When your kid loves dinosaurs so much….

Honestly, I don’t know how Yul ended up this obsessed with dinosaurs. The obsession started before we even introduced him to dinosaurs and before we bought him any. You can watch the video about buying him his first dinosaurs here. But we have no problem with it and are happy to indulge him. I think studies have shown a link between intelligence and dinosaur obsession in kids, and no wonder, as they memorize dinosaur names and scientific facts. It gets their little brains working. Yul is not even 2 years old yet and is already trying to say Triceratops. It comes out something like “too too ta” though haha.

We had already planned to take him to the Goseong Dinosaur Museum, which we have visited before we had Yul. My sister in law suggested the Goseong Dinosaur Expo instead and it ended up being a great idea as there are so many things for kids to do. Although the expo was in 2016, all the big exhibits are still there and it’s open to the public. Even on the weekend there are minimal visitors so it made for a nice day out. There are limited food options with some areas and kiosks not functioning so it’s best to bring a packed lunch. Some of the halls no longer have exhibits but there is still plenty to see and do. Also, it’s on the coast and there are nice areas to walk and see more dinosaur footprints.

We weren’t sure how Yul would handle this big day out, but he loved it so much. When some dinosaurs roared he was a little scared, but only scared enough to stand behind me and hold my hand. For everything else, he was OBSESSED. So much so that he was heart broken when we had to leave. But we will visit again and we still need to take him to the Goseong Dinosur Museum.

Filming for Korean Morning TV show

We were on a morning TV show here called Morning Wide. In this video we show you the segment and talk about the experience of filming, when we’d only been back in Korea for a few days. Filming can be pretty difficult and we had to travel as well. But one of the reasons why we wanted to do it was because the audience of this show tends to be older people and we want to show the positives of being multicultural. If we can change someone’s mind who previously had a negative opinion, than it’s worth it.

It also happened to be Seollal, Lunar New Year, so the show tied in with their New Year programming. Hugh’s parents got Yul this very cute hanbok. I’m so grateful they did because in the rush of travelling from Australia to Korea I had not thought about getting him one for Seollal. It was great to see him in this style of one.

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National Museum of Korean Contemporary History (대한민국역사박물관)

We recently had a family day out and went to this museum. I hadn’t been before but I was glad that we went. It’s a great overview of Korea’s modern history. Although I was familiar with much of this history, it was interesting to see in a chronological order and to see artefacts from historical events.

Many people get interested in Korea through Kpop and Kdramas and don’t realise Korea’s interesting but sometimes very sad, past. In order to understand Korea now, it’s important to understand what has happened to Korea.

This museum is really easy to get to and the staff were so nice. Even finding Yul’s toy that he lost even though it was closing.

More on this site here.

Hugh headed down to Busan last Thursday for the Busan International Motor Show, where he was invited as press to the unveiling of the Genesis Essentia concept car. This is a vlog of his time there, as well as parts of the livestream he did at the unveiling and some shots of what else he did in Busan (and of course what he ate!).

Hugh is competitive in general so I’m so used to saying “It’s not a competition!” that it was out of my mouth before I realised… oh yeah… it is literally a competition!

Also, Happy Lunar New Year!

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New video! Another podcast video where we chat about some topics. These are the easiest videos to edit at the moment and luckily Yul is happy enough to be in our arms quietly while we talk.