A Few Conflicts

1.

SJ, the little boy, was crying in bed and I was so surprised last night. After I got what made him so sad, I was very sorry and was sad, too, like him.

He has complained for weeks that he didn't want to go to YMCA's Gym class. In fact, my wife and I was very happy that the downtown YMCA Gym was really close to home, and thought any regular exercise would be good for the kid. So we registered him to two hours a day * three days a week afternoon class, and he is learning to swim and inline-skate. (Yeah, he returns to home 1:30 pm from his kindergarten and goes to the Gym 3:00 pm.)

As for inline-skating, he's fine. He's good at it. But for swimming, he has a trouble in breathing now.

I tried to explain that it's only two weeks that he began to learn and only 6 swimming classes so far, so it's natural for him to feel some difficulties to breath like a fish, but he looked so scared to practice it anyway.

I was a little bit shocked that he said he hated three days(M/W/F)of a week due to the swimming class, and hated also the other three days(S/Tu/Th) because he had to worry about the scary swimming class in the next day. Unhappy 6 days a week. No. Actually he also said he hated Saturday because of the three-hours-long english class he began since March. So full of unhapiness.

In the end I'm not sure all of these are for him or for his parents, my wife and me.

(Spring is coming to us, regardless of whatever I'm doing, thinking,...)

2.

Very barely, I could feel a lull and another storm I'll possibly face soon and hardly avoid at work. Well, obviously and seriously I need to think about my job at the current work and my future now. I need to agree everything was changed and to wake up from a long lazy hibernation.

To be dull may be helpful. To be more aggressive may also be helpful. Hmm, making money is really hard.. How wonderful if the life can be initialized and restarted like some setop boxes.

Two more options maybe. Begining my own business again, or going to school to put something new into my brain.

I need to find what I like to do for the next 30 years-the third age- at first. I'm also considering to change the confusing blog title from routes-finding to routes-found. No joke.

(I'm still staying in the winter, but the nature is preparing for the changes in its genetics..)

3.

It's not my interests as well as not connected to my trouble, but Mar 21 is the 113th memorial day of the Donghak revolution(or upheaval) which (might be) was the first human rights declaration against the old hierarchical society in Korea..

The building in the picture is the main church of the chondogyo, a korean religion which is following to the idea of the revolution..

Just make things right.

I went to Sangju last night, and met my cute boy and girl, and wife in a week. And picked them up this morning from Sangju to our sweet home, and now working at my office alone again..
-
I had terribly busy and die-hard hours without them for a week, but it was quite good that
I could watch all the episodes(22) of Prison Break season 1 and 18 available of season 2. All 40 episodes. I'd never tried to do such ridiculous and stupid things but they were really surprising and fabulous. I couldn't stop watching them easily. And I could feel how people became 廢人(the crippled: actually the word has slightly different meaning-extremely radical maniacs- in korean netizon).
-
Cool, really. I liked the words of S:

We'd got to have a faith...
Just make things right...
Now we go..

Home Alone, Being A Workholic.

Yeah, truly a sad story.

My kids and wife are visiting to her parents at Sangju city, quite far away from Seoul for days. Yeah, without me, by train(KTX) to Taegu, for congratulating her younger brother's graduation. It was the last Friday and they went to her parents' home altogether for a week stay.

That looked nice.
That would be fine though I would have lonely and scary nights alone, I had thought.
That would be fine though I would have to make my meals by and for myself, I had thought.
In other words, I would have free nights and free weekend. Excited a lot for free hours for myself and for my own fun. Wow.

No, no, however, not happened such things. I was free from my family but instead, stuck to my work. I could be back home past the midnight every night, had to spend whole the weekend writing some dull reports at my office..

Possibly I need to go work on Mar 1st, the national holiday, and the following weekend.
I really hate the current mess.. I hope I could escape from.. soon..

The February Story

It's really tough. Too many things on few days. Too busy at home as well as at work and it's hard to make some time for posting.

I had a 5 days-long SEOL(New Year's Day) holiday in the last week and it's very good chance to take a rest or a short family trip. But unexpected jobs came to me without a word, and I had to go work three times at weekends and the holidays. Several overnight works and strong stresses made me fully have lost the regular/usual living pattern temporarily.. And I'm trying to recover from the mess as quickly as possible though it's not easy. I have still some job to complete till this week, and have to go work today and tomorrow, but really hope this is the last weekend work..

=====
It's almost one month after we moved to the new house. Except that it's a little bit small, everything is fine. Very convenient and fabulous. Easy to access to anyplace in the city. Lots of restaurants and stores near the house. A market around the house. We all are satisfied with this new shelter except one thing I said.

It's my new view from the living room. The Bukchon and the Bukhan san are over there..

====

I got the free admission tickets for Louvre Museum Exhibition at the national museum from an oil company's promotion. We went there and enjoyed the famous art works. Impressed on the Napoleon portrait and other big paintings.

I was very pleased when I got that SW didn't get sleep as before while watching the paintings, and though not serious for all, SJ looked to be interested in a few works. We may wait for more years for this kind of funs. In fact, my condition on the day was really terrible due to a hangover, I couldn't concentrate on the works, too. Anyway, it's free. (Feb.10. Saturday)
====

SJ and my wife went to a concert.

I was not sure SJ would like Strauss or Ysaye, but Schubert's Fantasia and Tchaikovsky's Valse were included in the program, so I chose the third day's performance on Sunday evening without a hesitation and bought the tickets.

The player was one of the promising young violinists, actually quite famous one. The small size of the concert hall was nice to enjoy solo's plays, I thought.

It would be wonderful if we all went there, but SW and I had to stay at home. SW is too young to go concert and I was very tired and needed to care of her. When I asked about the performance after they're back home, both of them were smile, just smile.. I could guess. (Feb.11. Sunday)
=====

Yes. SJ had completed his second year of the preschool courses. He got a general reward(I think all kids received), and the perfect attendance reward. I couldn't join in the ceremony held in one weekday. (Feb.15. Thursday)

=====

JY's (my wife) birthday after Valentines' day.

Usually we have birthday parties on the days in the lunar calendar, but JY's lunar calendar birthday is the new year's day, and hard to have a party every year. So we had a small party for her on the birthday in the solar calendar.

I couldn't prepare a wonderful gift. Stupid, yeah.. Just a PIG ice cream cake! SJ gave her a blossom of rose. Anyway happy birth day for JY. (Feb.15 Thursday)
=====

The New Year's Day as usual. Nothing special, except I had to go work to check something..

Kids are growing everyday and the so called kids' clothes are getting smaller quickly. SJ's Hanbok(Korean traditional costume) didn't fit already in the end of the last year, so we decided to buy a new one. We went to the store, where my mother usually go for hanbok shopping, and bought one, easily. By the way, the lady (owner) gave another girl's suite for SW as a present ! (My mom is a patron!) We didn't take account of the new clothes for SW, but got one. Thanks.(Feb.16. Friday)

SW took the new one in the picture, but she didn't tried it on the new year's day, because it's a little bit thin for the season and a little bit large for her. She took her old one and we saved the new for the next time.

SJ didn't take his new hanbok, too, because he got another suite(the blue one in the picture) from his cousin. (Feb. 18. Sunday)
===

At the late afternoon of one weekday, we went to a theme park for fun. (Feb.20. Tuesday)

(In the park, he was running from here to there)

(SW was waiting for SJ and her mom who were on the roller-coaster, at a restaurant. Her pose was getting similar with her brother.)

( Going out from the park. Not crowded. )

立春大吉: Onset of Spring and Big Fortune

We've never attached at home any kind of Charms so far, but we did it yesterday, the onset of Spring, the first seasonal session of 24 divisions a year.

It says Big Fortune at the onset of Spring. I wish it so...
It also says Everything will be fine(or good lucks..). I wish it so, too.

===

We've successfully settled down a cozy house at last, though we have a plan for another move in Aug. or Sept.

No feelings, no thoughts. We don't need such kind of luxury things at the moment.

Fine if it's convinient to get to my office and to SJ's preschool.

One thing I'd like to try if possible is to upgrade my understandings or appreciations for arts in this arts' street. Another thing I hope is to reduce the goods we have for living as much as half..

Mountain Trout Festival

The temptation was quite strong when I saw fishing pictures at
Raphael's blog. Fishing on ice like Pingu. Actually it was my son's earnest wish for a couple of years, too.

So we decided to go Hwacheon for fishing, and to enjoy Mountain Trouts Festival.

We could arrive at the place at about 9:30 am after two and half hours drive, but there're already lots of people fishing on the river(surprisingly it looked artificially being iced and looked very safe). We found spots and waiting for fish on the crowded river.

(The hole for fishing)

But obviously there're more people than fish. From time to time, some of them yelled cafter catching beautiful trouts, but we gave up our efforts after two or three hours without any fish. Kids were dissappointed. Fortunately, however, there're many other funs like sled, ice tunnels, ice house and so on.

(We needed real fish, but this fish lamp was also nice)

Sledding was another fun we could enjoy for hours. Real pleasures. We spent most of afternoon for this sled-riding on the river, the side of the fishing spot. There were big family-size sleds on which three or four kids could ride at the same time, but we rented three small traditional sleds due to the more than one hour waiting time for the big one. The small sleds were also nice anyway.

(My nephew and younger brother went together. 3 adults and 3 kids. Playing with kids is a hard-labor sometimes)


(My little girl was getting asleep while sled riding..)

We left the place in the late afternoon, and could be back home after 4 hours driving due to the weekend traffic jam.. I think that's a sort of payments or costs for pleasure..

(The crowded river for fising and sledding)

What are the necessaries for 7 months ?

The next moving date was fixed: Jan 26. But not fixed yet what we are going to bring with us to the new house.

Actually, it is a sort of furnished apartments and we don't need to move kitchen gadgets or a closet. No fridge, no gas-cooker, no washer, and no closets.

We'll bring some clothes, bedclothes, the small stove, the electronic kettle, and some kitchenware like pots, dishes and spoons. The computer and the small audio player will be moved too. Kids books and some toys, too. We may need a small table and chairs.

(SJ's toy house -The Jae-Ne Jib,means His House, would be the largest size toy we have to move )

I'm hesitating to bring the TV set and the DVD player becuase a small desk or draw table might be needed for them, but kids must be demand them.. Don't know..

I'm hesitating for a book-shelf. Actually we used four big book shelves and 3 small ones before, but I'm not sure we still need any of them. I threw away a lot of my books already, and put away a lot of kids books . Perhapse we can give up this item.

I'm hesitating for the sofa, becasue I- I'm sure WE- might be rolling over the living room or the bed room while I'm staying at home. And I don't like to see the rolling kids like potatoes while watching TV. But it's too large to move by myself. It would be better to change my mind. What's the matter if we are rolling over all the places at home for moments..?

I'm a little bit worrying about that I became too familiar to discard something, but not so bad.. Anyway I wish it would be like living in a hotel..

The Lake Park at Ilsan.

The Lake Park at Ilsan is quite famous but we've never been to there so far. We went to there on the last sunday and spent couple of hours in a small theme park(with baloons and air mats). SJ had enjoyed his first bunge jump-actually a sort of tumbling. The little girl enjoyed the air- mat-playground but cried for my stupid attempt of the tumbling..

We found the next destination and are going to move two weeks later. Again, my wife sought it and had a contract for it. It is a small apartment in Ankookdong-exactly Kyungwundong and very close from the old downtown. Yes, it takes quite long to my office..

The Second Search.

My wife are looking around two or three places for our temporary residence.

Her necessary condition is that SJ can take his school bus easily as possible. My condition is that I can get to my office by metro or by bus within reasonable time. SJ has also his own idea on this. He said he doesn't like old apartments, and it should have a silver-colored appearance(he means the brandnew buildings wrapped with aluminum panels or glass curtain-walls, i think)


And it would be better if

• the directions of this and the next moving are not westward
• the cost is not too much
• the space is large enough for four family members
• the surroundings are nice for daily life: parks, hospitals, shopping malls and pleasant neighbors
• and so on..

We are considering a small apartment or studio in one of these areas: Jamwon, Angook, and Hannam dong. Kwanghwamoon was a strong candidate, too, but there's none available at the moment.

Some of the family members and friends are wondering why we do not settle down simply and why we are hopping from this place to the other place far away, and hopping again soon. I fully understand the question and agree the curiosity partly. But hard to explain.

What I can say at this moment is that the journey is still on the planned track so far fortunately.

Winter Wanderers

New resolutions for a new year? No, no, never to my family, at least, this time. We could manage only daily schedules or, at most, weekly schedules. Any yearly plan may smash and destroy my wife's brain as well as mine.

Two words for my family at the moment are wandering and wondering. Wandering life and wondering future.

-

Bundang is a wonderful place for living, according to my wife, because

• most of places are flat and no high hills to climb to go home.
• there are a lot of markets and stores, and no need to buy food for a week in discount stores.

In my opinion, it's a nice place too because I could reach to my office from home in 40 minutes by walk, no costs for commuting, and plenty in the morning and in the evening.

As for my kids, they are really pleased with two new family members. Their aunt and uncle are very kind and deliberate.

There's a lot of benefits in living here, but it is just a temporary shelter for January. I think we moved to here only in terms of sleeping, eating, and daily chores. If not, why did we have such a hard saturday in the last weekend.

Due to the sudden attack of the big snow while we were waiting for SJ's one-hour english class and my appointment with the dentist, which were happened far more than 30kms from the current home, we had to wait for more than two hours of snow removal.

Anyway, in the coming weekend, we'll resume to search for another rental house in downtown again.

PS. There're some confusions in the move at the end of the last year. The biggiest one is that the two-day-long plan was changed to a single day one. In the meanwhile, the fridge was delivered to the wrong place. Many of plants and pots were broken/lost due to the careless handling. I was annoyed but no way.

PS2. Thanks to stone for your interest. Actually there's no private place for me at the moment, so it's hard to update the blog..

The beautiful weekend, too.

I'm very sorry I couldn't use my camera in this beautiful weekend.

On saturday, we went to a short performance-Kkubug Story(hmm, means bowing-story) at Raemian Gallery, Kangnam. It was a musical for kids, which was teaching the manners required for communal life. Yup, dull, ridiculous and uninteresting for me, but kids looked enjoying it. Well, it was free and needed to accept its quality. In addition, we met our neighbor(actually one of SJ's closest friends) there by chance. A funny day.

(Well, I'm not so familiar this new small camera..)

Sunday? Everyone was talking about the snow. Yeah, the snow to me, too. The snow was there. Look at the photos I took at balcony in the morning. I really love this house, this place and the view it gives. I'm a little bit sad when I think I would leave here soon..Took these with the small camera again...

After breakfast, we went to the playground of the near-by element school to make snow men.

Do you know what a hard job it is?

SJ had the chickenpox(SOO-DOO) in the last week(and I was regret that I was laughing at JH's interesting picture..) and cured well, but the weekend activities might be hard to him. He has a severe cold right now..

The Plan A

My life, nope, exactly, the life of my family, would be very exciting in 2007 by the uncertainty which had resulted from our abrupt, immatured, chaotic, and confusing plan for exiting from the current living place.

I felt it's quite an irresponsible situation for kids, but anyway they are some of the family members and we would share all the inconvenience.

At the moment, what have determined are:

1. We will leave the house on 29th Dec. No need to stay here any more.
2. We will visit to my elder sister in Bundang, for a month. Actually we had expected it for two months, but SJ has to go his kidergarten since Feb. 1. So possibly it can be shorten into a month visit. One more option here. My sister and her husband said, two-years-long visit would be also fine. For this, we need to change the SJ education strategy, but it would be the most fascanating and attractive choice, considering my financial status.
3. We have to find a small studio, or condominium for 5 or 6 months-long-stay if we decided to leave my sister's home in February. One problem is we didn't decide yet how much we will spend for this temporary stay. Actually I surveyed for the residencial service companies like Co-up, Fraiser, and Vabien, but it's too expensive.

Well, now what we have to do right now is packing. Since there are three destinations for packs, we decided to do it by ourselves rather than to use the commercial movement services. The furniture, books, clothes, kitchenware and toys are classified into three: Always-Carrying-On-Boxes, Shifting-For-Two-Months-Boxes, and Long-Term-Storage-Boxes. The first boxese will be moved to Bundang on the 28th of this month. The rests will be to my parent's home in the next day keeping the classifications.

I'm packing them every night, but not sure whether I can join in the moving jobs. My wife said, she could handle it anyway..(fantastic, isn't it?)

One confession. While facing the tough change in my company, I had seriously thought about a short break(actually 8 months-break) and a trip to foreigh countries with whole the family, but finally ended in just a thought. I'm sorry about that still. That would make differences for all.

Wibro Test

got this wibro terminal inthe last summer .
'I'm writing down this on the bus to go home thru its handset. Hmm, curious enough. The pix I took minutes ago thru the handset.

oh no upload is not available in this pocket-pc ms explorer .

ridiculous...

hmm an accident on the kyounbu highway .

now,20:00 pm...

hmm interesting, isn't it ?

The weekend after a crazy week.

Well. It would be better to deny all the meetings and banquets in the last week. I think I should do that. Especially considering my health status at the moment.

After late works on monday(actually tuesday morning 5:00 am) , a heavy drinking would not be so good idea, but it's the 4x4 rendezvous wating for months. How I could hesitate for it. We were batting the breeze till the next morning actually. I remembered all the wives of 4x4 guys once said, all the guys in 4x4 talked too much. I thought that's true.

Then, I had to spend the midnight and early morning to meet/drink with my new bosses one day, with my new co-workers on the next day, and with my ole colleagues on the last friday.

Less than 10 hours I could sleep in whole 5 week days of the last week. More alcohols I might drink than the amount of mineral waters and meals for the days. Absolutely crazy I was.

On Saturday, however, I needed to join in a 5-km racing game with my son, which I had promised months earlier. Being tiered? Oh, that's not a matter. It's still hard to him, but looked much better than in the previous one. It was held in Bundang.

Runners preparing for their starts.

On Sunday? Oh, no. I had to visited to the demonstration rooms for the new apartment. And I had to joined in a demonstration of the future-inhabitants for quality-upgrades. (But I could leave the place soon) Really I felt and agreed that the quality in the plan would be trouble later.

The living room samples.

Very busy but fully fuddled in the week. And I don't remember anything in the last week. That makes me sad. I need a break anyway.

December. The Holiday Season

I love the cold weather of December, which is freezing my brain. Only the instinct - to feel cold or hot, to feel cool or hate- works in such days.

I love all the splendid decorations for Christmas or New Year's Day, too. The colorful blinking lights make me warm and dreaming. While watching the beautiful lights, which makes me a kid, I could stay for hours without doing anything else.

I took this pretty picture (a fancy decoration of one of the major department stores in Seoul) on Sunday night at my car while driving with my son.


PS. I'm not sure what happened here the blogger site. No editor's menu board in Explore 7, and I could upload the picture through Mozilla..

OK. That's fine.

It's time to think about what I have done or been doing in this year.

(The door is closing. Can you see my cute girl behine the CLOSED door? )

Well, at first, what I did in the last day of November 2006 were:


1. I gave most of my responsibilities to others.
After being taken the interesting job, perhapse I might loose my energy in somewhere. Anyway the rest of my jobs has been ,in a sense, some target of another team(actually for two years). So I gave up them, too. Instead, I could care of one more teammate. What will I do in the next year ? Don't worry, there're lots of works waiting for me, and I still have passions for works no matter what they would be.

2. Things in legal
It's the day I promised for paying all the money for the new house. So I visited to the realter's office with my wife in the afternoon, met the ex-owner of the house, paid for the really-big-bucks, visited to the bank for a new loan assignment, and dropped to the construction company for changing the contract. And then returned to the realter's office for the final deal.

Complex? Yes, they were.
Happy? Happy for the new house ?
No, not I am, not yet, at least. A lot of stresses for all of the above steps. It's hard to talk about everything... It's a really funny convention in this ridiculous country. Ugly.

3. Doctor gave me a bunch of pills.
I forgot the assignment in the late afternoon, but a call from hospital(it's very surprising, isn't it? ). Fortunately since I was at home after the above annoying works, and the hospital was so close from my home, I could meet the doctor in time, and this time he gave me a slip for 3 weeks medicine to cool down my numbers.

What I got finally were some medicine for hypochondria, some nervous sedative for over-sensitive poor spirit, and some drugs for sleepless nights. In fact, I'm not sure these were needed at the moment.

===

Cheers, anyway !! It's DECEMBER, the HOLIDAY season, now !

In a Bloody Week, Disarmament and Settlement

Last night, the outline was fixed for the next year business.

I could get some poor position in the similar organization, but more than half of the previous works was not my work any more. Two out of five teammates had to find another positions for them.

What I learn from the demolition were:
1. Lack of Confidence was never helpful.
2. Pessimistic view was not helpful, too.
3. Reality was advanced to Hopes usually.
4. Keeping Cool and Reasonable Thinks were musts.
5. Strong Appeals were always needed.

Let's not forget those.

Changing my profile.

You can read my new thoughts in the upper-left side of the page.

The family is the main root of my life, I feel these days.

Another Deal.

Well, it's due to my choice: to sell the house and to buy a new one. So the complain was not good in any case, I know. But there're some pressures, too.

Thanks to my wife and thanks to the kind neighbors, I mean, relatives, friends, banks and insurance companies, we could meet the money in short.

But the realter called me this afternoon, and ordered how we have to prepare the money. The problem is the amount of CASH is too much for hand-carries. I understood why cash, but be very unpleasant, rather a little bit upset. The appointment time was also given by the seller, because she is very busy. I'm annoyed at this, because I'm very hard to make time in this week as you know. But no way. I don't like to miss this contrat. Need to agree the priority is still on the selling side. Even though the market situation is shrinking fastly, the financial environment is changing to the anit-market position gradually and the explosive taxes..

It's true I'm starting to worry about the negative perspectives on the real-estate markets.

Ah, one more annoying thing.

I'd read all the postings by the potential inhabitants in the web community of the new apartment I bought after getting the permission to join in(I had to pay for it, terrible..), and found there ARE some big probelms between the construction company and the contractors(inhabitants). Many of the main and important items offered by the company at the installment sales, look not to be kept. There were a lot of rebukes, critics, and even fights and struggles. I'm disturbbed in mind a lot.

The life seems to be, really, not easy..

Among the worst cases.

Actually, I think no porblem even if I have to move out some field offices. Rather, it can be a toally new, fresh, and interesting opportunity to me. I'm ready to go. If the change would be only mine, I wouldn't care their thoughts or orders.

The worse is, to break off our team, and to crash our teamwork. It looks not able to avoid, though. I didn't notice for this till it was announced.

I'm very sorry about that I couldn't keep the teammates who have to leave me, and go to some positions where they didn't like to go. I feel I'm irresponsible for them. They might be hurt by me, by my incapability, and by my insensitivity. I think I had some mistakes. I should care about all the people in the team, not about a specific person in this chaotic situation. I had lost a fairness among people at a loss. Oh, I'm really sorry about this and should apologize for this to them.

I'm very sorry that the work I have concentrated for two years, has to be handed off to others when its promising outputs look feasible. I feel I have robbed of, but no way to keep it. How humble it is.

From this noisy and ugly fussiness, I did learn about the big organization, how it works and people in powers about which I've never thought in my life so far. A lot of pressures.

I'm dreaming of some.. from now on.. carefully.. As you know, I'm a sort of.. tenacious.. .. Wait , it'll take time.. but I'll .. anyway..

Hey guys, I'm not so easy to meet you in this week, because the business was not done yet. Would you mind if I suggest to postpone our meeting to some day in the next week ?

P.S. I really appreciate for Raphael's offer and his sincereness. Really thanks!