[Part 1] 014. 15 August 2010 Sunday

Brunch for today was rice cake soup.

Poor Tae Hun had a stomache and kept crying so 어머님 and Youngjin's father brought him to the clinic. Jeannie and I were home alone and I was just about to pack my makeup bag when Youngjin came back with Sujeong and her family. They had gone to Gangwon-do's Ocean World theme park the day before. I talked to Sujeong's parents for awhile and they were quite fascinated that I knew Korean (though of course, not as well as Jeannie!) and her father even said that he can help me get a job in Korea in the future. I was also invited to stay at their place when I come back to Korea again next time. We talked for quite sometime and suddenly, Sujeong's father said he wanted to bring us to Bucheon's water purification museum. I mean it was quite spontaneous and he just suddenly said he wanted to bring us out, leaving Jeannie and I with very little time to prepare to go out :( But nevertheless, it was an interesting experience and I never knew that Bucheon has such museums.
We went to the Bucheon Library to take some photos and I brought the wrong lens out :( The library's closed on Sundays.

Next stop was the Bucheon Water Museum 부천물박물관 and Bucheon Kkachiul Filtration Plant 부천까치울정수장 before we went to the Bucheon Botanical Garden or something 부천식물원. Sujeong's father knows a guy there so we didn't have to pay for the admission tickets. We also watched a 3D Dino Adventure show and had to wear 3D glasses which left marks on our noses.

On our way back to Youngjin's place, Sujeong's father bought us ice cream from a convenience store. I was still eating my ice cream when I got back to the apartment and Taehun got jealous of me because he wanted the same ice cream as I had but he was sick.
We spent the rest of the afternoon giving Youngjin English tuition for awhile before we had dinner. I taught Youngjin grammar while Jeannie grilled him on vocabulary. Taehun kept coming into our room when we were teaching Youngjin so the 3rd time he came in and distracted Youngjin, I carried him out but he got angry with me :( He kept making so much noise about wanting to go into our room while we teach Youngjin when we were having dinner that the 3 of us (Jeannie, Youngjin and I) had to go back into our room and pretend that we were teaching Youngjin so that Taehun could come in. It's not as if he wanted to learn as well because he doesn't understand anything at all and all he did while in our room was to play in the room while we pretended to teach Youngjin. Grrr....all the things we do to pacify a 4 year old kid!

After dinner, 어머님 brought Taehun to a nearby convenience store to buy him an ice cream, similar to the one I had, to cheer him up. Poor Taehun had a fever as well and was shivering so I hugged him for awhile to give him some of my body heat. But apparently, 어머님 had a different approach...she wanted to cool his body temperature and didn't give him a blanket or extra clothing to keep warm. I don't know...maybe it's just the Singaporean way of dealing with fever by keeping ourselves warm enough so that we can sweat it out? Seeing Taehun like that made me quite sad...it brought back memories of my lost opportunity when I rejected my place in Adelaide Medical School...and how I won't be in the position to help and alleviate the situation. But if I had gone to Australia last year, I wouldn't have met Youngjin and his family and I won't even be in Korea now as well. It's over, accept it, Clara!
Alright, back to my day...anyway, after 어머님 and Taehun got back from the convenience store, Jeannie and I went out with Youngjin and his dad. They wanted to go to E-mart to look at dogs but since 어머님 had to stay at home to look after Taehun and Youngjin's father can't drive as he had just had his eye surgery, 어머님 asked me if I could drive to E-mart! But I don't dare :( The roads here are seriously complicated and it's left-hand drive so the 4 of us walked to E-mart. Along the way, we asked Youngjin's father why there wasn't much hype about the fact that today's South Korea's national day and he said that it isn't the actual national day...the actual one is in October to mark South Korea's independence whereas today marks the independence of Korea from the Japanese Occupation.
The pet shop at E-mart didn't have the mini poodle that Youngjin wants but the Yorkshire Terrier puppy we saw was sooooooooo cute! It kept gazing at us with longing eyes too. We shopped for awhile in E-mart, tried food samples and bought Korea's equivalent of Yakult before heading back to the apartment.