Happy Halloween everyone! I was so glad that received our household goods in time to decorate, get our costumes and pumpkin carving stuff. Halloween is most definitely not celebrated in Korea so items were hard to come by.

We started off our Halloween festivities with the ward Fall Festival on the 23rd. We enjoyed the potluck activities and trick or treating from door to door in the building.

The kids made their own goody bags



And played carnival games like bean bag toss to win prizes.

There was a pumpkin carving contest but we hadn't had time to carve yet, nor did i want to travel with two carved pumpkins all the way to the church. But I had to take a picture of someone's clever apple carving. I loved it!


Finally Wednesday we did some carving of our own. Pumpkins were slim pickings at the Commissary and though we found some good sized ones, they weren't the healthiest. For that reason we kept our designs fairly simple this year.











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Saturday night there was trick or treating in Hannam Village. Here's the boys with their spoils.




And here's the costumes! We all know Cade is obsessed with trains, so when I found someone selling this train conductor costume on the facebook flea market page here in Seoul I snatched it up.



Alex went to infinity and beyond with his hand me down Buzz Lightyear costume. He loved wearing it and was a trick or treating con-artist. Everyone would think he was so cute that they'd put a giant handful of candy in his bag, and then he'd reach in their bowl and grab some more! They'd all laugh and think it was so cute that they'd give him another handful! He came home with more candy than Cade!


Dan and I had a costume party after the trick or treating and the theme was Super Villains. Neither of us could find anything in Seoul so this is all our imaginations and things around the house.

We looked up Mario Villains and came up with Dan's costume of a Goomba!


My mom suggested I be Cruella DeVille, and I had the perfect formal dress to do it. It took a little creativity to get the hair. Some hairspray and baby powder made the white, and since I couldn't find black hairspray, mascara did the trick. I used all of my own clothes and jewelry and even gave my white stuffed animal some spots to give me a dalmation. The best part of the whole things was that I won best costume!




I hope you all had a great Halloween!!

Here's a little video I made of our trip to Gyeryong to see Dan's band perform the Tattoo show. Unfortunately it got rained out, so the only pictures we have are from what we did the day after the show! Enjoy :)

One of the very first things we saw in Seoul was the Seoul Tower.


We could see it out our window from the Dragon Hill Lodge, and Cade asked us nearly every day if we could go there. We finally made the trek a few weekends ago.



The first debate was how to get there. Seeing as how it is up on a large hill, there aren't any convenient subway stops. Then we considered taking a taxi, but since we had just received our car we decided to save the taxi money and drive there.

After a few turn arounds (navigating in seoul is impossible!) we finally found a place to park near the Namsan Cable Car company. Unfortunately parking ended up being 6,000 won, more than the cost of a taxi!

Since we have small children who complain about walking we decided to take a Cable Car up to the Seoul Tower instead of climbing the stairs or hiking the trails. Cable Car was about 20,000 won for all of us. (and when trying to convert the money, it's easiest to think of 20,000 as about $20, just a little less)

Here we are waiting to get on the cable car. Why so serious Alex?




The view from the cable car was pretty cool, but there were probably 40 of us smooshed in there like sardines, so this is the best picture I got.


This one is from outside the cable car, up atop the hill.


Once out of the cable car there were still some stairs to climb, and there were a few restaurants and snack areas to eat. One of them had this really pretty fountain with lights.



I used this nice background as an opportunity to snap some shots of the boys







Now almost to the Seoul tower, there was a plaza where these guys were all dressed up. It looked like they were in the middle of something, but of course the boys ran up to them and this man immediately smiled and posed with the boys.




So the Seoul Tower itself is just like any tall building, an area meant to see the city from up high. But there were a lot of other things to see that really had nothing to do with the Seoul Tower at all. They had a teddy bear museum, which we decided not to pay to see. They had art on display, including these creatures(?) hanging on lines above us.



And there was this whole mezzanine that the walls were filled with locks. From what we could gather, this was an area that you come with your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance', spouse, etc and commit to each other by placing these locks on the wall. Apparently this is a pretty popular proposal spot.



The area has its own view of Seoul and these neat little benches to scoot the two lovers together.



And as always, here's Cade looking at the map. He's obsessed!



This is who we affectionately call 'the yellow guy'. The meaning of this character is in the picture below



In case it's too small, it reads "Haechi Seoul's symbol is an imaginary creature that helps realize justice and enhance safety and happiness."

Finally inside the lower decks of the Seoul tower we found this fun sign placing Seoul Tower against other popular towers of the world.



Korea just gets me with its randomness. I mean, we are here to go up in an elevator and see the city, but downstairs, separate from anything else are these lego characters and a bench, clearly set up for photo ops. There were also more restaurants and a kid's arcade area. So silly!



Now we're finally at the top! The elevator ride was nothing exciting seeing as how you can't see out. Here's a picture of where the cable cars leave from. Don't let the trees fool you, there's plenty of urban city just out of the picture.



Views all around



This lady paid for Cade to use that and insisted on helping him out. I didn't mind b/c Alex was running around the circle of the observatory over and over again!


All along the top of the windows were names of places and how far they were from the Seoul Tower, this was my favorite.



We got a little lost finding the elevator back down, but found this wall of small tiles with little messages written on them. You can buy a tile and add to the collection.



All in all we really enjoyed the Seoul Tower, but may find a better way to do it next time without spending money on parking, cable car, and the view of the observatory. Cade still asks when we can go back, and whenever Alex sees it out the window he says, "Look Mommy! Hi Power!" Took me a long time to realize what he meant :)

After our long journey, Dan had a performace with the band at Yongsan's fall festival that evening. The boys got these fun light sticks for 3,000 won each.



The line up of artists were popluar Korean groups followed by the Army Band leading up to the fireworks.





We were sitting so close to the fireworks that debris was falling on us!




I tried to put the video of the band playing Stars & Stripes along with the fireworks, but it's not working, sorry! I'll try again later.