Mother's Day - 2018

We've been slowing giving Kai more chores at home and trying to teach him independence skills, so Mother's Day was a good occasion to try teaching him how to make pancakes for breakfast.

He did fine with stirring the pancake mix and water together.

But had a little trouble with the flipping part.

Still, we had a couple of good pancakes for Mom (while I ate the ones that didn't come out as good) and it was a small step toward building a repertoire of meals he can make on his own.

My wife said that what she really wanted for Mother's Day this year was to have the inside of her car cleaned. So, I taught Kai how to wipe down the dash and other parts of the interior, vacuum the floors, and wash the floor mats.

Late in the afternoon, we went back to King Spa, where we went a couple of months ago when our hot water heater went out. At that time, both Kai and my wife enjoyed it very much and my wife said she wanted to return for Mother's Day.

The last time we came, my wife did not have a massage as we did not know how long Kai would tolerate the place. But after seeing how long he wanted to stay in the bath area last time, my wife decided that she could enjoy a 90-minute body scrub and massage this time.

So while she was doing that, Kai and I went to the men's side and soaked alternatively in the really hot tub and the cold one. The cold one feels way too cold at first, but after a good hot soak it is very refreshing. And conversely, cooling off enables you to return to the hot side for a few minutes before it becomes too hot and you need to cool again.

We stayed in the bath area for over an hour, and then put on clothes to come out to the coed area where there are several dry hot rooms where you can lay down and relax. Kai didn't particularly want to stay in those too long so I had him wait in the lounge where he could use his iPhone while I tried a few more rooms.

And then Mom came out and we met up to have dinner at the Korean restaurant on the premise. My wife said that she really enjoyed the scrub/massage and she seemed really relaxed.

We ordered fried dumplings and Korean vegetarian "pancake" for appetizers.

For the main dishes, my wife had Soon Tofu, a Korean soup made with kimchi. Kai had kalbi beef. And I had grilled eel.

Everything was delicious!

It was a lot of food for us, but we saved room for dessert. We shared a strawberry shaved milk ice.

The shaved ice was different than the kind we had in Hawaii last summer; the ice was so soft that you weren't sure it was really ice. It tasted really yummy!

And so this Mother's Day had some things for Mom and some learnings for Kai. All in all a good day.

When the Water Heater Goes Out...

Our hot water heater went out over the weekend which meant we could only take really cold showers at home. Wondering how we could take a shower without freezing, my wife came up with the idea to go to King Spa.

One part of the spa has large public "tubs" or baths, with separate areas for men and women. Kai and I went to the men's side while my wife went to the women's. Before we parted, I asked my wife how long she wanted to spend in the bath before we would meet up in the common area, and she said she thought she would want to stay in the tubs for 45 minutes to an hour. I was astounded... how would I keep Kai occupied for that long?

The area with the baths are very much like a Japanese onsen where you clean yourself off before entering the bath (without clothing). As Kai and I had been to several onsens in Japan, we were familiar with the routine.

In this place, there were three separate baths. One large one was filled with cold water, while two others had hot water and then another had one with even hotter water. Here is a photo from their website:

When we first got there, the cold water felt way too cold and the "even hotter water" tub was way too hot. The "hot" tub was just right. After several minutes in that tub, Kai went over to the cold water tub. He started to go back and forth between the tubs, and as time went on he spent more and more time in the cold tub, only occasionally coming back to the hot tub. I, too, found that the cold tub was refreshing after soaking a long time in the hot tub, and also was able to go into the "even hotter" tub after a good dip in the cold water.

And so we stayed, soaking and going from tub to tub. An hour went by and I asked Kai if he was ready to leave and he said he wanted to stay a few more minutes.

And after a few more minutes, he said he wanted to stay a few more minutes. This went on for quite some time. I think we were in the bath area for about an hour and 45 minutes, and near the end an employee came up to me and said that my wife was looking for us.

When we went out to the common area, my wife was wondering what had taken so long. I told her how much Kai was enjoying the baths and that I didn't want to cut the time short.

In the common area, they have hot rooms where you can lie down and relax. There are about 7 or 8 different ones, each with a different theme (such as Pyramid Room, Charcoal Room, Salt Room, etc.) We tried a few different ones but were getting hungry.

The spa has a Korean restaurant so we went there for dinner.

The food was pretty good and Kai enjoyed it. As we were eating I asked him how he liked this place. He said it was his favorite place, better than Six Flags or going to Florida. Ha!

After dinner, we went back to one more hot room and I shot the following selfie.

My wife really enjoyed this place, too, and we made plans to come back on Mother's Day.

It wasn't great that our water heater went out, but we made great lemonade with that lemon.