Tag Archives: Seoul

Sarah Ventures to Children’s Grand Park

I have been so blessed and thankful to have been meeting so many fantastic new friends while we are living in South Korea! I was invited to spend the day at the Children’s Grand Park located in Seoul. We took the train line 1 from Dongducheon to the Children’s Grand Park. The trip was rather easy and we only had to deal with one line transfer station on line 7.

Children’s Grand Park was originally opened on May 5th, 1973, and covers over 138 acres all geared towards children. Right when we got inside of the main entrance a park attendant approached us and provided us with a nice park guide and tried his best to tell us a little about the park.

The original area was the grave of the wife of King Sunjong, the very last emperor to the Joseon Dynasty. The tomb was relocated in 1926 and then later used as a golf field before being sold off to the city of Seoul Government to be renovated into what we know as the Children’s Grand Park.

The park offers tons of green grass and paved areas for a child to run free and burn off energy! There is a zoo, some vendors and eateries, a music fountain, outdoor concert center, fairyland, roots garden, an environmental pond, animal school, adventure land, design Seoul gallery, a botanical garden, a kids auto park, marine animal house, parrot village (where you can hand feed the birds), a small animal village, the world of ferocious animals, a water playground, an animal show theater, amusement park, and tons more! Curious to know the cost? Get ready for this…. FREE! This place is absolutely FREE! The only thing that you would have to pay for is if you purchase food to feed the animals, yourself, or souvenirs. The Park opens at 5:00AM daily all year and closes at 10:00PM. Just another reason why I absolutely love this place!!

The group all snapped tons of pictures and I wanted to get mine posted so that they could take whatever ones they liked as well. In some of the pictures you will see get to see “flat Stanley”. Today was my first day learning about Stanley from Stephanie and I thought I’d share what I learned on here too.

The flat Stanley project was created in 1994, by Mr. Hubert, a third grade teacher. The flat Stanley project supports the international literacy and community building activity for students of all ages, teachers and families.

The Project allows opportunity for students to make connections with students from other schools who’ve signed up with the project. Students begin by reading the book and becoming acquainted with the story. Then they make paper “Flat Stanley” and keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. The Flat Stanley and the journal are mailed to other people who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal, then return them both after a period of time.

If you want to know more or want to get your class or child involved check out the website http://flatterworld.com/?nav=home – While you are there view the live map of where Flat Stanley is located.

Changwon Cherry Blossom Festival

This weekend one backpack bee packed up and headed to the Changwon’s Jinhae Gunhang Je (known as the Cherry Blossom Festival) with friends (Mr. B was under the weather). We took a private bus trip departing in Dongducheon at 6AM to Changwon. Our guide joking stated the best comparison she could provide distance wise is like when you are in the states heading through the four southern states to get to Miami Florida. The trip down was about 5 ½ hours South including three rest/ stretch stops along the way.

We enjoyed the bus ride and traffic was fantastic right up until we were nearing the festival location. Our friends packed food for an army so of course we munched on snacks, talked, relaxed to tunes, and munched more. We celebrated Hectors birthday with a cake, candle blowing, and song, along with an anniversary.

Changwon’s cherry blossom festival is the oldest known festival beginning in the year 1952 and is held annually April 1st to April 10th. This year marked the 49th year of the festival celebration! The town is best known as the world’s largest number of flowering beotkkot namu (cherry trees). The festival commemorates Korea’s famous naval hero, Admiral Yi Sun Shin. Closer smaller celebrations near Dongducheon will take place around Seoul later in the month when the blossoms start to open.

Last year over 2 million tourists came from all over the world to attend and walk along the beautifully tree-lined streets and take in the picturesque mountain views. At some points when the wind would blow it would look as if it was raining pink petals. Words really cannot express just how beautiful the sights were.

I snapped as many pictures to try to capture what the town and festival looked like to share with all of our bloggers. In the pictures you will notice that a new friend Mary and I tried beondaegi, or known as boiled silkworm larve. Yes, ewww! Ha-ha! It was something I said I was going to try and blog about once I had done so. The taste I can’t even put in words. It is definitely something that I have gotten out of my system and do not feel the need to try again….well until I make my way to Taiwan where I hear they are actually pretty tasty.

I snapped a few pictures of the various food vendors to include the little beans that one vendor was selling. Suk grabbed the sampling plate and told our group to try them out that they were very good. Surprisingly I really thought they were good! Suke went on to tell us that these beans were a local thing that the area prided themselves on. The beans are said to provide your body with a cancer fighting preventative factor. Next year if we go back I will definitely purchase a box or so because they were so yummy!

Okay, enough rambling! Go check out the pictures!