Happy Lunar New Year!

This week Korea is celebrating the beginning of the year of the rabbit. Keegan is enjoying several days off of work, the longest holiday he's had in a long time. In fact, we're all enjoying it! On Tuesday evening, we left to take a very short vacation in Muju, which some of you may remember we visited in the fall of 2009. Muju is known for it's ski resort, so this winter visit was actually a more appropriate time to go. We had an easy drive there, stopping for udong noodles at a rest area along the way. We checked into our cabin and said hello to our friend Matt and also Nathan and Eliza and Marriet, who were sharing our two-bedroom cabin with us. We didn't stay up long before it was time to put Sophie to bed, and we followed soon afterward.

On Wednesday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast before Nathan and Keegan left to go skiing. Eliza and I stayed with the babies, and our friend Sojung came over from the cabin next door with her daughter Anna-Lynn. We all enjoyed having company for baby care duties. In the late morning, everyone retired for naps, and then we met up again when the guys came back to go for lunch at a nearby Korean restaurant.

Sophie is very proud of her banana-eating abilities.

Sojung told us that the restaurant had particularly fresh vegetables and delicious side dishes, and she was right. There was a mushroom dish that was absolutely fabulous, good kimchi, and a very eggy pajeon (Korean egg pancake with onions and seafood). The restaurant's proprietor enjoyed greeting all of the babies in our little group.

In the afternoon, Sojung and Eliza wanted to rest at home, but I was raring to go to the spa at the Muju resort. So I drove up the mountain and had some much-needed Mommy pampering time. This is a particularly nice sauna, with three tubs: one hot, one warm, and one cold. There is nothing like soaking in the hot tub, cooling off in the cool tub, and then returning to the glorious warm tub again. I was more relaxed after my soak than I have been in a long, long time (perhaps seven months?). It was really nice of Keegan to watch Sophie for me. Apparently, he and Nathan and Marriet went for a wintry walk by the frozen stream behind the cabins.

This slippery activity was not endorsed by Mom.

In the evening, we had a huge barbecue, with lots of ribs, salmon, and vegetables. A lot of other friends from Geoje were staying in the same cabin complex, so we had a big group to share the bounty with.

Dinner with friends

After dinner, we got to toast marshmallows, which is a pretty darn good dessert, if you ask me. The night was a little rough because of the vagaries of the cabin's heating system, which seemed to have two settings: surface of the sun or arctic tundra. But we survived.

On Thursday morning, we got to have delicious leftover-salmon omelets, and then it was already time to start packing up our huge stores of food and all of our baby gear. It was a very quick visit, but it was wonderful to see everyone's growing babies and to spend some time away from home. We are already talking about our next visit to our little vacation haven.