Another Adventurous Ride On Bike

Yeaach...15 km and 30 km in total....away from home by bike!! what a treat. I love biking now. I got to...since it's a great way to enjoy Seoul while I have time. It's weekend and what could be better way to spend the time? 

Just finished from school and ...to get rid of my strenuous brain-activity...I just got myself on my bike and off me go....venturing off. 

Nowon-gu turns out to be a great place to live. I mean...it does offer me a chance to beat the off-beat tracks that I dared only dreamed of when I was still at my previous neighborhood.  

A great place to live, eh? hmm...well..yes. I mean...despite its location on the northeastern part of Seoul outskirts, I find it an ideal place to live. But wait...don't you see the chimneys, Suray/ what about it? yes..at first, I was a bit shocked to find out that there are numerous chimneys sprung out of the apartment complex. Does it mean they are active factories? hmm I am not sure...but even if they are...

I don't really care since....

even bird like this one...a huge one..could just easily live and roam free at the nearby streams adjacent to the factories I am referring to.

So? It only means one thing that the environment is safe and healthy enough to live in. Right? 

This is exactly the very stream on which side I was biking along.  

And...da..daa......I finally encountered the active factory..I'm not sure what...I am really lost for words. Could they be an electric plant or some sort of waste-management facility in the city? Gee..I didn't know. I think I should've checked on it.

But..that's not the thing.. 

..the fact that wild yellow flowers I encountered do + indeed healthily bloomed in the midst of summer next to the plant...only confirmed my notion of this place being an awesome place to live--comparing it with others, of course.

And what better way to' immortalize' yourself than...by taking a selfie.:) 

The blue sky, the chimneys, the plant, and the pic of me. 

Again and again..I felt like I was already in the game...by drenching myself in the midst of flowers like that. Yep, I literally plunged myself into the middle of the flowers to take this picture. 

A different side of the same place. 

Woa....I loved it....^^

Biking for 15 km turned me into an environment-activity-escapee. 

Before long, I felt kind of exhausted of biking and then ..letting myself off at the nearby outdoor gym...where I tried some stuffs..which turned out to be my favorite past-time hangout.

Eyra's Comic Strip

 

It's definitely one of the those days when Eyra finally immersed herself...unnerved doing something. It turned out she's making a comic of her own. 

On a piece of paper folded and stacked to imitate a comic book, this small comic strips is really an achievement in itself. 

I wonder where she got her idea but, boy...the imaginative power of  a kid could indeed amaze us. First, she got her own narrative and she managed to put it into drawings...and put the text accompanying them..just like comics do. 

The white & white drawing tells about a missing cat and the quest to meet her owner again..and through adventurous twists... 

But..what surprised me even more is the fact that she applied Korean language to express her ideas and put those into words.^^ 

Even she included her own version of onomatopoeia expressions as she understood them in Korean. 

An onomatopoeia and the intricate layers of details--though simple as they may look--really got me overwhelmed.  

To see how small, it really is.... 

I grabbed them onto my palm. 

And oh..this is the front page^^

page over page as she created... 

This is one of the stages before adding the text balloon or any other background drawings. 

I find it quite amusing to see the smiling faces of most of the characters.. 

끝  Fin...Tamat...da...da...it's completely done.

Nope, she said. She needed some colorings. 

But at least...this is what she did.

Very proud of you, Eyra.

What to See @ Nowon Square

It's been a year since we moved to Nowon-gu from Dongdaemun-gu. It's a different world, of course. Since the first one is more like on the outskirt of Seoul--which gives me a good reason to love it. I mean...it has more trees and open spaces for the kids to roam free^^. Like this Nowon Square where we go for movies or shopping on weekends. 

This is the square seen from within the Buk Seoul Museum of Arts. 

And oh...the square is also home to three gigantic dinosaurs^^. Even the tallest one is as tall as the let's say...10 story-building?^^ I bet so. 

From atop the bridge connecting the divided square, the Buk Seoul Museum of Arts is visible. The right picture shows the plywood tree grown in front of the museum. 

This is the bridge connecting the two sections of Nowon Square.  

Back to the dinosaurs, I think they're impressive in the way how they 'merge' themselves into their surroundings. Can't imagine if they're real. 

I think all of the three dinosaurs were created with 1:1 scale. I am pretty sure. 

To see how tall this Brachiosaurus is, I asked Eyra to sit right in front of him/her?

An Artistic Encounter @ Buk Seoul Museum of Arts (part 2)

Good Morning, Robot 굿모닐 로봇, Yep..that's the theme of the Children's Gallery at the Buk Seoul Museum of Arts. After taking Eyra to see the contemporary paintings which ....a bit overwhelming for her age, we found that there was another unique exhibition on display. It's about robot. But, unlike any other robots, they're simply art installation made of (un)imaginable stuffs around us...and made into robot-like features to be displayed for our eyes to behold. 

From the lobby, we need to go down the stairs to reach the Children's gallery. See the displays down there? Colorfully intricate, right? 

The picture DOES not do justice to the real excitement as we felt when we're there. But, at least that's what we saw. 

The exhibition is held since March until August 2014. It's a good alternative way to take the kids--I found out.^^ 

And another 'don't-throw-me-away-stuffs' featuring what could be sub-titled into 'eco-green conservationist agenda by utilizing the seemingly unused toys around us. 

These ones, too. 

Pretty unique, right?

An Artistic Encounter @ Buk Seoul Museum of Art (part 1)

It's Sunday and I got to go out--like any other Sundays we do. This time, it was only the two of us, me and Eyra. Her Mom and her sister were at home having a ladies-morning-gathering (^-^), so I just needed to 'escape' the commotion among them at home. I'd rather be going out somewhere..ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Long-story-->short, I was taking Eyra to a nearby museum (the newly opened one): it's Buk Seoul Museum of Art or 서울시립 북서울미술관. We encountered three colorfully painted geckos(?) or lizards (?) at the front yard of the museum leading to the entrance. 

It's free admission, for most part. And we just dashed ourselves into it without any prior knowledge as to what'd be encountering inside.  

Well, it turned out that there were painting exhibitions by numerous painters from Korea. Gee..I am sorry for taking this picture...I didn't know as to whether I was allowed to take pictures of the arts...but as my camera kept on clicking EVEN with the sound of the 'Click-clik-click'...not even the guards minded that. I was not reprimanded for what I'd been doing..so I guess..it was OK to take pictures. And so I did. 

It's 무재 (or untitled)...so I read. I could be wrong, though...since there were other paintings on the walls....

say..I kinda liked this one..I don't know...the white stripes on the front seem to be people marching. Are they chefs? hmm and the stack of books at the background? wait..is that books stacked or....is that king's throne? hmmm 

Anyway..we also had a chance to see the tools used by the painter himself when he created his masterpieces. Even a collection of his tools could be a colorful revelation of themselves. 

Now..about the painter, one of them ( yes..there are others, too)..but, the one I managed to take a snapshot at was...황창배 (Hwang Chang Bae) who turned out to be a remarkably famous judged from his works and achievements posted here.

Hmm, I guess I could learn one or two from my dash-in encounter to this museum.

What about Eyra? Did she enjoy it? hmm, not sure..but at least she learned something new.

On Rio 2 (Again)

I just realized that I promised Eyra to get her the Rio 2 merchandise ....only to find that they're sold-out. Hmm..*sigh* I wish I'd remembered making THE promise. Anyway...so it went like this..to compensate what I did I took her to the cinema (again) to let her decide if she wanted to see the movie (again). This time in Korean, of course.  

Well, at first she was so excited of having heard the idea of re-watching Rio 2.  

But then..she told me "Dad, it's okay. I don't need those stuffs." 

But, what about re-watching it? She said, " Nope, no need to, either"

*I was just like "oh..."

Bye-bye Rio 2.