Friday, Day 22: Pyeongtaek

Simeon's favorite kids’ café is back in Pyeongtaek where they used to live. It has cars the kids can actually drive. Dan has a race there tomorrow, so today we drove down to their old base at Camp Humphreys and and spent the afternoon at the kids' café.

Erika says the cars can also run by remote control. If there are smaller children, the staff turn the big kids off the track for a while so the moms can drive the little ones by remote. Today there were no little kids—just boys about Simeon’s age, some of whom were so thrilled with driving that they grinned at their parents as they drove off the road. The place had a “sandbox” of pellets with toy trucks, a slide into a pool of plastic balls, a trampoline room, playhouses, cooking centers with plastic food, toddler scooters, musical instruments, and a “hospital” with doctor coats, medical instruments and a teddy bear patient. But what did Simeon do? He drove. There is a cross walk to get to the parked cars. Periodically, the light changes to let pedestrians across. The workers made the kids wait until the walk signal turned green even if there were no cars coming. If a driver reached the crosswalk when the light was red, he had to wait. Good practice at following the rules of the road.

After about 45 minutes the other little boy left. It’s not as much fun by yourself, so Simeon went to a log cabin and played camping. (The staff play with your kids so you can drink coffee and hang out.) But as soon as another little boy arrived and Simeon heard the sound of a car starting up, he dashed back to the track for another 30 minutes of driving laps. 

He’s a competitive guy. He doesn’t like being passed. He even waited at one point for the other kid to almost lap him so that Simeon could be in front. As he got more and more tired without a nap, we had to remind him that these were not bumper cars like the one he drove yesterday at LotteWorld.

You take off your shoes Korean style and store them in a locker. You pay by the hour for your kid (cheap babysitting) and adults are required to pay a small fee or buy a drink. We opted for the drinks. Cheaper than Starbucks. A fun afternoon.

Tonight we went to the potluck at the Candence ministry hospitality house. 

A great crowd. I didn't think to take a picture until the cleanup was nearly done.

After dinner there was a short talk by Chris Jolin (in blue shirt) before he interviewed Chaplain Bryan, Erika's favorite chaplain when they lived here.  The Brandts are leaving soon for their next assignment.

The Jolins, the missionaries who run it, are friends of Erika's from her Camp Humphreys days. Jenny Jolin also happens to be the daughter of Steve's best friend in high school, best man at our wedding. So it was fun.