Travel

Three days in Music City: Eating my way through Nashville

1 Comment

I’m not much into the country music scene, and by not much, I mean not the teensiest bit. So when told my trip to Nashville would be on the eve of the 50th Annual Country Music Awards, with a lot of celebrity sighting potential, I had to confess I wouldn’t know a country star unless he bit me right in the face.

This statement did not get the laughs I expected in Tennessee, so I’m wondering if people there were just (a) too aghast at my ignorance to respond as expected, or (b) there’s actually more face biting going on than I realize.

It can’t possibly be (c) that I’m not as funny as I think.

Continue Reading

Travel

If you think traveling with young kids is a waste, you’re doing it wrong

4 Comments
Manic Mumbling - Family travel is never a waste of money or time

Manic Mumbling - Family travel is never a waste of money or timeLast month, Grant Feller of The Telegraph published an article admonishing parents to wait to travel with their children until they’re teens. To do otherwise, he says, is a waste of money, and the only reason anyone would do so is to assuage guilt about expensive vacations, and rack up bragging chits about their little ones’ ability to tick countries off lists before any of their friends.

Feller points his own childhood travels as “supreme indulgences” on the part of his parents, who dragged him along when he was too young to appreciate or remember anything of significance.

If all that wasn’t enough, he says, traveling with kids is distinctly no fun.

“Children are always inconveniently tired, have very little interest in culture, can’t walk longer than 45 minutes without needing sustenance and moan if burgers aren’t on the menu.”

As part of a parenting team that has brought one or more young children along on a number of regional and international trips, I have a different perspective.

No, more than that. I completely disagree.

Continue Reading

Nonsense, Travel

Turns out you CAN go home again, but they’ll probably make you sing

No Comments

http://www.manicmumbling.com Challis Rodeo Grounds

“You know, JaNean used to play Delta Dawn on the piano. She was good. You could harmonize with her.” It was more a statement than a request from JaNean’s cute, bespectacled mom.

All I heard was Delta Dawn. I did what any rational person would do and belted out a refrain.

Del-ta-a Dawn, what’s that flower you have on
could it be a faded rose from DAYS GONE BYYY?

I took a long drink. Singing is thirsty work.

“That’s right,” JaNean’s mom patted me on the shoulder. She wrote on a slip of paper and she walked away. Realizing she was turning in a karaoke request, I looked at JaNean for help.

“Those are the only words I know.”

JaNean shrugged.

Continue Reading

Parenting, Travel, Youth Exchange

Of couches and tchotchkes: pros and cons of hosting an exchange student

3 Comments

Exchange Student Hosting, www.manicmumbling.comAs I’ve mentioned, the term exchange student horror stories is one of the more frequent searches that brings people here. I’m still trying to figure this one out. Are you all considering hosting a student and wondering if it’s crazy? Maybe your own kid’s thinking about exchange, and you want ammunition to talk him out of it?

OR … are you creative industry types trolling for movie fodder?

Because if it’s that last one, I’ve got a great idea {call me}.

If it’s either of the former, I’ll warn you I’m biased. We’re preparing to welcome our sixth exchange student to town. Between Mike and me we’ve also been counselors to another five. Our oldest is going on exchange, and we’re actively hounding him to make good use of the tutorials we bought so he can coherently ask for directions to the bathroom once he gets to his host country later this summer.

Outside of Google searches, I’m asked every once in a while about the pros and cons of hosting exchange students. It’s hard to come up with a list. It’s kind of like quantifying the ups and downs of parenting, really. The downs of parenting are pretty straightforward. You don’t have to practice sleeping in ninety-minute spurts every night, or actively wear spit up on your shirt to know neither is especially your cup of tea.

Continue Reading

Asia, South Korea, Travel

A last day in Seoul, and a few weird and awesome things

4 Comments

FullSizeRender (22)This is Anne. Anne is an English teacher who was sitting next to Mike on the train last night and asked if he would be willing to proofread an assignment from one of her students. Mike obliged and thumbed through the work on her iPad, and the two struck up a conversation. She found out we’d be leaving Seoul soon, and wanted to give him a gift. The two made arrangements to meet at the Kintex conference center today, so she could bring it to him.

She’d told Mike about her desire to be a missionary, so we wondered if we were going to get a bible or something. Later Mike and I had a conversation about what we would do if she brought us a packet to smuggle on the plane. Or, like, a baby or something really weird – with a couple of tough guys to rough Mike up and “make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

This is where our conversations go, because we are marginally kind of awful people with weird senses of humor. And because no one in the US would go out of their way to bring a thank you present in return for editing someone’s homework, so we know better than to accept the simple fact we could be on the receiving end of a straight-up thank you.

Continue Reading

Travel

Day … whatever … in Seoul: a little about the kindness of strangers

No Comments
IMG_5586
Police officers in what Colin calls their “field-trip” grouping, watching a protest group of disabled vets across the street

Today on the way home from our conference, Mike and I stopped to watch a little drama unfold. There were several young police officers making clucking noises and beating bushes along the side of the road. A little crowd gathered with us. A mallard swooped overhead and landed in some tall grass beyond the sidewalk. One of the officers showed her a cardboard bucket, his fingers pinching the top closed. I could hear the noises from inside the bucket and hopefully the mother duck could as well.

Earlier, Colin had remarked how groups of police officers walking together in double lines on the sidewalks reminded him of first graders on field trips. I thought it was a little strange, too. Why is it that we see so many groups of what look like kids not much older than my sons, grouped together with fluorescent “police” vests, being led around as if in training, and not a lot of individual officers walking or cycling or driving around patrolling?

Continue Reading

Asia, South Korea, Travel

Seoul Day 7: Birthday Gangnam Style

2 Comments

IMG_6135If you’re looking for Days Five and Six to our Seoul Saga, you can stop. I didn’t do them. Our conference has started and those posts would have been about over air conditioned meeting rooms and trying to remember to exchange business cards with two hands.

Actually, the last two days were dedicated to a pre-conference. Today the bonafide conference started, and the opening ceremonies were more elaborate than I expected. Like, by a long shot. I guess when forty-some-thousand Rotarians get together in a room, it causes a stir. We heard from the UN Secretary General, and the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (home country of our international president, K.R. Ravindran), and that of the Republic of Korea.IMG_6163

Today is also Jack’s birthday, and with an afternoon light on actual conference activities, we let him set the afternoon’s agenda.

Continue Reading

Travel

Day four in Seoul: Adventure and its drawbacks

4 Comments

IMG_3440There have been times on trips like these when I remember the word “adventure” is actually a rather loaded term. Sometimes, it means more than a rip-roaring good time. Sometimes “adventure” means “what the hell just happened and how can we avoid it in the future?”

I’m going to tell you what just happened, but first you have to hear about the rest of our day. It was fabulous.

On Monday, when we’d visited Gyeongbokgun Palace and the Bukchon Hanok Village, we’d taken the short walk to see the Changdeokgung Palace, to find that it was closed on Mondays. Then yesterday, when we’d made it to the Seoul Tower, we’d planned to stop at the nearby Korean War Memorial, but it was a long day, and I actually forgot. So we decided we’d tick both those things off our list today. Neither is especially close to the other, so it would be a haul.

Continue Reading

Travel

Day three in South Korea: Seoul scenery, skyline and shopping

3 Comments

IMG_5796It really doesn’t matter that we didn’t have to be anywhere this morning first thing. I was up at 5 am again anyway. This lack of sleep is going to catch up with me, I’m sure.

Today we took a really long ride on the subway to the center of of the city to visit Seoul Tower, the forested Namsan Park, and the surrounding neighborhood.

We disembarked from the train at Myeong-dong, which is worth mentioning only because I’m traveling with teenage boys as well as someone pretending to be. I really should have prepared myself for the onslaught of jokes pertaining to whether or not one can find Myeong-dong or the relative size of Myeong-dong compared to any other dong.

These people are a laugh-riot, I tell you.

Continue Reading

Travel

Day two in South Korea: The DMZ and the Cheong-gye-cheon

1 Comment

IMG_5715Were it not for the unparalleled kindness of strangers here, we’d have missed out on our scheduled tour of Panmunjom and the DMZ I’d scheduled weeks ago, which would have been a huge shame. Jack wrote a blog yesterday alluding to that kindness (and has since said something about Koreans being the Canadians of Asia, which was as accurate as it was clever), and I’ll expand upon this morning’s adventures in a later blog. Otherwise, this entry would be way longer than necessary.

As far as the tour goes, I have to offer a shout out to Jen and Ted of Thrifty Nomads, who were a great resource, and whose advice I took in booking the same company, the Panmunjom Travel Center. There is no other way to visit the DMZ except through such a company. Those wanting to participate need to plan in advance. The tours do sell out, and even if they didn’t, all of those wanting to join the tour need to go through a multi-day vetting process beforehand.

Continue Reading