A Week Ending in Kimchi

On Saturday we were up early and headed to GMDaewoo's "2010 Kimchi Event for Sharing Love," where volunteers make Kimchi (a Korean dietary staple) for those less fortunate. All GMDAT employees and their families were invited to participate.

Beautiful fall morning

We arrived in time for a tour of Kyle's work digs.

We are here

Kyle at his desk

Keeping the time zones straight

Arriving at the Kimchi assembly area

Cabbage and spice bags, ready to mix

 Kimchi assembly is a messy job!

Volunteers

Finished product, ready to be loaded onto the truck

It was a fun day for a good cause. We were "kimchi'ed out" and came home to enjoy a very Amercian lunch: Tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Speaking of food, now that we're into the second trimester, we are able to enjoy the many culinary delights that Seoul offers. Last Sunday we had trouble deciding. Everything sounds good (finally)!

Mexican? Italian? (behind Kyle) We ended up choosing Indian-yum!

All in all, a good week. I hosted our flower arranging class, attended our monthly neighborhood luncheon--getting around was a little difficult as busloads (yes, busloads) of poilce were in our neighborhood for security. Apparently all the G-20 First Ladies were touring the Korean Furniture Museum near us. Finally, on Saturday night we enjoyed a dinner party at our good friends Larry and Dorie's where we met new friends Vlad and Tanya and their eight month old son Denis. So cute!

Almost finished

Yoko and Karin taking instruction

Dorie admiring her work

This week's flower class mascot

:)sbc

Visitors!

Not just any visitors, but some of our favorite friendly faces from the US! In town for a trade mission (likely their last), JoAnne and the Governor found time for a quick lunch--and a lot of catching up--with Kyle and me.  It felt so good to see faces from home. Kyle and I both said as we were leaving, "That was so fun." Now we really can't wait to come home for the holidays! One month!

Governor Granholm, Shelby, JoAnne

Thanks, Jo, for a great visit and bringing everyone along! It was great to see the Governor and Fred and meet Eric. 

:)sbc

The Melbourne Cup

Tuesday I joined a fun group of friends for one of the most anticipated expat events, The Melbourne Cup. The time difference is only three hours, so we get to enjoy this event LIVE!

It felt good to celebrate tradition--not my tradition, true--but tradition nonetheless.  It was a similar situation with Halloween...they don't do it here, but with a few emails and a well organized map, the expat families in our neighborhood gave the kids a reason to get dressed up and trick or treat.  My point, I guess, is that If it reminds us of home, we'll get together and celebrate it. It matters not which country actually sponsors the tradition. I can't wait until Burns Night in January, although I need to learn all the words to Auld Lang Syne. I digress.

Okay, back to Melbourne Cup. It was part tailgate, part fashion show, part casino, part ladies-who-lunch. Although, there were some men there. Like I said, it is a pretty big deal and some of the men take the day off work and get all dolled up for the afternoon's events. 

We were Table #1. We bet and lost, but we had a blast! Thanks for a great event, Australian and New Zealand Association.

Hats!

Table #1

Odds

Entrance to Melbourne Cup

Ladies posing with their hats

Dorie and me

Top R to L: Olivia, Dorie, Susan, Joanna, Nicole, Terri
Bottom R to L: me, Cindy, Deb, Sarah, Sally

Susan and Champagne

A French horse (ridden by a jockey from Hong Kong) named Americain was the victor. :)sbc