Stumbling upon the extraordinary

Last Saturday, Jaren and I set out to make it to a cherry blossom festival in Seoul.  There happen to be tons of them, and knowing which one to go to?? - well it's a little vague when your trying to pick from thumbnails pictures and reading hangul.  Needless to say, we did our best "pin the tail on the donkey" move, and just picked one.  Jaren researched the directions.  I pinned a location in my iPhone, and we set out with the gingerpuffs.

As we were looking for parking, we decided to take the light prior to what the iPhone was recommending.  That landed us in the Seoul Olympic park.  What the random?!!!

Thinking we'd just walk through the park on the way down to the festival, we began our stroll.

(Accupressure walking path - to massage your feet)

Don't you just love it, when the journey actually becomes your destination?  I am so grateful that both Jaren and I have the ability to be flexible and just roll with it.  Turns out there were tons of beautiful trees on the grounds... and so we went with it.  Sure, we got "Korea'd" and never actually made it to the festival... but with all this beauty... I didn't really mind.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia.  So, the Seoul Olympics were held in 1988.  I was 10 years old, and I can still remember watching Janet Evans swim her 400 m free.  She took home the gold that year and set a new world record.  Her record stood until something like 2006.  Crazy!  Anyhow, Janet Evans was a huge inspiration to me, and one of the things that led me to become a swimmer.  So, being here in Seoul, at the Olympic Stadium where she made that happen.  Pure swimmer geek magic.  

Anyhow, back to our stroll through the park... 

Alta was really making me laugh with these statues.  This one was "biting her".  

I love the little lessons children help you see.  My girls frequently remind me to stop, slow down, and actually SEE what is right at my feet.  They help me to take time to stop and smell the flowers.  

To see the wonder and magic in all of God's creations...

For the record... I love this picture.  It makes me giggle.  It also makes me hear my sister-in-law Kara's voice say... "Gosh Maisy, stop being such a baby!"  Which makes me giggle some more.

See.... cherry blossom festival shmestival.  We find our own beauty!  We are learning to just enjoy where life takes us.

So this pic cracks me up too.  Because it's a perfect representation of the mass quantities of hair and love that these two girls share.  Alta, half choking her sister out... to "love on her".  Mila, loving it... for this second.  All with some dark foreshadowing in the background... somehow warning that this won't last for long.  Yeah... life is like that.  You have to just enjoy the moment.  You know that the rain will come.  And when it does... it's best to just try to dance in it.

Hmmm... now I'm hungry.  So we just decided to skip the "actual festival" and go find food. I had heard of some mythical magical new york style pizza place in Seoul called the Brick Oven (somehow the name not being Korean gives you confidence that this pizza might be more like our pizza back home.).  Which is not to say that I haven't been enjoying the Korean pizza places here.  We have this place in Anjeoung-Ri called Pizza school that has a sweet potato pizza.  It has some strange sweet mustard sauce on it.  And beyond bizzare - it actually works.  But I digress... Brick Oven.  Pretty dang tasty!  

Also, and excellent opportunity to introduce the girls to Calamari.  Hey girls, remember the squid from the market???  It's what's for dinner!  Yum!

All was going well with the el-squido until Mila got a bite she couldn't exactly chew enough to break apart.  Well the long stringy bit started choking her, so she urped it right up onto Jaren's plate.  Seconds anyone?  Yeah, it's times like this, I am happy to be the vegetarian in the family.  

 This girl LOVES her pizza.
 

Wait, hold up.  Let me take a second to tell you about driving in Seoul.  It's nuts!  On the bigger roads, it's just busy... but if you pull off onto a smaller road... it's like driving through a sea of people.  Pedestrians that don't seem to care that it's a road.  They don't really move over.  And if you don't just drive, you will never move.  So you just kinda drive, and somehow no one was hurt.  

Finally, on the way back to our car.  We just found this place.

Soft serve ice cream, with actual honey comb, or amazing chocolate.  Yes Milkcow... I loved you.

And so did the girls.
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So, moral of the story.  Did we accomplish the thing we set out to do?  Nope.  And I'm so glad we didn't!  Another fun adventure in the books.  Another memory with my family.  Another lesson learned.  Roll with it folks.  You'll be happy you did.