Zofona > Zofona Seoul > Stories: English and Dutch > Our Korea stories > May 9: 2004

May 9: 2004

Sunday, May 9 2004: skype, the baby and a doggy bag
Hee hoo, hee hoo, a new story!

First, a discovery, which has nothing to do with Seoul, called skype! Yesterday someone told me about this internet telephone program and recommended it. Amazing results after the first tests, much better than anything I know. I talked with someone from the Netherlands and this morning with Rick who lives in Moscow. It has no background noise, echo or annoying delay. Just go to www.skype.com, download it, installation is simple as well as using it. After installing just add zofona. If we are behind our computer we can talk. How much does it cost? Nothing!!

Friday Christina went to the hospital for a scheduled pregnancy check up. Both the baby and Christina are doing fine. Her blood pressure dropped to normal after being a little bit too high the previous time. Count down has started, just 5 more weeks to go. I am starting to worry about the new baby room because the baby bed is still a problem. Yde should go to his other bigger bed but so far, he does not want to move out of his old bed. We now decided to leave it this way but this means a quick search for another bed. We also washed all the small baby clothes, strange to see these small clothes if we look at Yde because he is already becoming a big boy. It is just hard to imagine he also wore those clothes. Well, we hope the baby is not going to arrive a couple of weeks too early. I have to go to Singapore at the end of May. We just hope that nr. 2 will not decide to start the discovery of the big world when I am not here. It is up to Christina to make some good appointments with nr.2, like stay, stay, stay!!

We also used the opportunity to eat some raw herring during Queen’s day at the residence of the Dutch ambassador in Seoul. Besides, from herring they had some other typical Dutch food, meatballs with mustard, great! On May 4 in the Netherlands, we commemorate the deceased during the war. Therefore, we attended the ceremony at the monument for the Dutch soldiers who died during the Korean War. Every year Korean War veterans organize this together with the governor of the county were the monument is located. Wreath laying, salute shots and trumpet play made it a worthy and impressive commemoration.

Christina wrote about it before, but yesterday I finally saw it myself. We went to a big market not far away from our house. Beside from medicines, vegetables and just food they also sell dog. Both alive, and indeed, served as tenderloin steak and rib. I will leave out the details but ehhmm, processing it into tenderloin and rib happened right in front of me. For future visitors who are not too sensitive, and who especially seek a so-called “cultural experience”, this would be the ultimate test for a strong stomach and “cultural shock” proof ness.

At the end of any news bulletin most of the time you will get the weather forecast. We give you the after forecast of the weather over the past couple of weeks. Changing all the time with already several times steady rain although the raining season should not start yet. Last year it was much warmer in May and we were sitting outside almost every evening. But this time not, it looks like Dutch weather! Even today only rain, hopefully it will improve soon, we do not whish to be reminded of the Netherlands so vividly this way.