Happy New Year 🎉🎉🎉 We saw in the new year by watching the light show on the outside of the museum and cultural centre. We visited HYBE Insight today, which was amazing. A must for K-pop fans in Seoul 🙂

What a great wishlist ☺️ Are you considering Jeju? I hope it all comes together for you in a way that is just right. Do you have Naver maps? Google maps is out of date here. Naver maps is what my daughter is using to navigate us everywhere. There have been a couple of culture shocks for us, which I'm happy to tell you about, but I also understand that everyone's baseline of cultural knowledge is different. My shock might be your shrug 🙂

Lucky you!! Interestingly, some of our best moments have been completely unplanned. We haven't done much touristy at all yet. Our trip is based around the uni program, and my daughter's biggest wish was to immerse herself in the dance community here, which she is doing. She's doing uni in the day and then dance classes at night with the industry professionals and K-pop choreographers. In between these we wander and explore the local area wherever we happen to be. We will definitely visit some tourist places, like museums. My daughter is studying East Asian History at the uni here, so museums are a must-see for us. What sorts of things are you planning?

A Cup Above: Drive-through Brew

My daughter experiencing being snowed on for the first time in her life 🤗 It was after midnight, at the end of a huge and amazing day, and this was the icing on the cake. Catching snowflakes under a street lamp in the middle of the night with my daughter 🥰 20221229_232922.mp4

The other night I was in a room somewhere and a K-pop group came in and waited in the room where I was. There was me, one other person and them. I won't say who or where, but needless to say, it was very very cool 😎

I'm so lucky! I had the pleasure of meeting the absolutely delightful daughter of @Kareni @Kareni

Your post brought back memories. My previously-homeschooled daughter is an anxious perfectionist but also needs constant challenge and stimulation to maintain her overall well-being. Our strategies have varied at different ages and stages. I know it's challenging. Our homeschool years were a constant oscillation of me swinging between confidence and doubt.

I was really loose about handwriting. We never used any curriculum, and it wasn't a must-do every day or even every week. This approach didn't break my daughter 🙂 For persistent issues, like reversals of certain letters, I addressed it in ways that were more appealing to her than a workbook. We used whiteboard pens on our bathroom mirror, for example. I'd write a sentence for her to copy, or a question for her to answer. We also used whiteboard paper that clings to walls and windows. Probably the biggest factor for us was that writing needed to have a purpose beyond practice. There needed to be a real audience, so we regularly wrote cards to relatives, and we found penpals, and we entered lots of competitions in science magazines etc. This was at age 5. Knowing that someone would be reading it made it important to my daughter to make it legible. I never bothered with insisting on a real script, but I always modelled excellent handwriting.

@SKL Thought of you when I saw this at Hapjeong train station. @Rosie_0801 Please let me know if this photo needs to be removed. I'm not sure if a picture of a picture of a celebrity is problematic or not. [Moderator: Nor do I but it's better to be safe than cause legal problems, sorry 😞 ]

Merry Christmas to you too 🎄

Merry Christmas to you too ❤️

The SBS Christmas Eve Gayo was amazing! Everything went smoothly, and we had incredible tickets. We didn't get them until we were on the bus, so we had no idea where they were (or even if they were real). We saw Stray Kids, NCT, Ateez, TXT, Enhypen, Aespa, Itzy, IVE and heaps more. What an experience for a K-pop fan. We are so lucky 😊 Here's the view from our seats.

I think it is worthwhile to remember that some YA take longer to fully launch than their same age peers. There are some valid reasons for this, including physical and mental health issues, and also neurodiversity. I attended an online summit several years ago about raising diverse children, and a big take-home message was to parent the child and not the age. Just because the Jones' son was launched at 21, doesn't mean that yours will be or should be. Some scaffolds may need to stay in place for longer and be weaned very gradually. Having said all that, if there aren't any underlying factors, perhaps you could go with something like this: "Kiddo, Dad and I have been thinking about how we can support you in the new year. We'd love to help you be less dependent on us. Let's get together, throw around some ideas, and nut out a plan" Then maybe have a list ready, from smallest to largest. You could start by proposing to stop supporting the smallest at New Year. I wish you all the best.

I'm still a bit nervous about whether we have real tickets to the Christmas Eve Gayo tomorrow night. I posted about this ages ago. I bought two tickets allocated for foreigners through a company called Creatrip. We don't get the actual tickets until the time of the event, when we have to show our passports. Until we're actually seated in the venue I'll be nervous that we've been scammed. 😬

Hip-hop, breaking and K-pop choreo mostly.

Me too!

We'll be here for five weeks. Three of those weeks are the intensive study program at Yonsei University. A whole semester in three weeks. So it's hard to know if there will be any spare time to do other things in those weeks. Last night we were at YG dance studios, YGX. More dance classes with dance celebs. Nain was one of the instructors, and my daughter was thrilled that she was picked out by Nain to be filmed! These experiences are so incredible. My daughter is having the time of her life, and I'm so lucky to be sharing it with her.

I hope they have a great time. I understand the mama-worry. My eldest is about to fly to NZ with her husband, to see his extended family for Christmas. They are going to a familiar place with familiar people, but I still get nervous. I think it's the fact that I can't just jump in and help if there's any problem that crops up.

Yonsei University - it's huge! And so beautiful in the snow. My daughter was thrilled to find a museum there and some historic structures. My daughter had never seen snow before, and neither of us has ever experienced temperatures this cold. But we've adapted well, and we're loving this new experience. Thank you all for your interest and support 🥰

On our second day we saw a reality show being filmed in the street. My daughter recognised the guy, but I hadn't heard of him or his show, Busted. But again, very cool to witness when you're just wandering looking for lunch. We're staying near Digital Media City, so our local shops are near all the broadcasting networks. Last night my daughter took a dance class at 1million dance studio with one of her dance idols as the instructor. The instructor is famous for Street Woman Fighter. My daughter loved the class and got photos with the instructor 🙂

My youngest daughter and I are in Seoul! On our first day wandering near our place, we saw a k-drama being filmed on the street. We don't watch these so we don't know who the actors were. But locals were stopping to watch and take photos, so I assume they were people of note. We'd love to know who it was!

I think that @watheand I are on the same page with this. This may not be just about a stocking stuffer. This could be your son thinking that a powder/supplement/other is a quick and magic way to a different body shape. I really hope it isn't, but it might be, either now or further down the track, and to me (and it seems @wathe) this is one thing to consider. Our appointments with a sports dietitian were incredibly valuable. ** Just editing to add that I won't keep pressing this. I only mentioned it again in case you missed my first post. Actually, I don't know if you have me on 'ignore', so maybe you won't get this anyway, but I'm posting about this because I care about you and your family.

My answer pretty much mirrors @wathe My concern is that it could be a small step in a dangerous direction. Perhaps a visit with a sports dietitian could be a good idea? I've done this with one daughter, and the sports dietitian looked at a food diary and an exercise diary and then came up with a meal plan to ensure that all macros and micros were adequately covered for the level of exercise. As an aside, our dietitian had us add nutmeal to certain foods to increase both protein and calories. Protein powders were never suggested.

Or keep the first phoneme and then add 'azza'. Darryl = Dazza Sharon = Shazza Mind you, we don't just give people nicknames here. We give just about everything a nickname. eg Shazza will pop to Macca's in the arvo. It's right by the servo.