The Little Princes

Today I ventured out on my own. Sort of. The boys and I were escorted to the train station by my dear husband. There we met up with a friend who escorted us to a Fabulous new place. There's a chain of restaurants here in South Korea called "The Little Prince" (here's their US website http://www.littleprinceusa.com/). And yes, it's loosely based on the famous book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

American moms, get ready to be jealous.

We walked in and were immediately asked to remove our shoes and put on a pair of foam slippers. The kids were tagged with stickers that contained their name, time of arrival, and shoe locker number (all written in Hangul). Then the kids were released.

Flashback to a play place in the US. At a play place in America, this would be the time when you grit your teeth over the grossness factor of the playground and hang around the edge of the play area, listening to other kids teach your kids bad words and waiting to break up fights.

OK, now back to The Little Prince. My boys were guided into one of the play areas by some incredibly patient, sweetly smiling playground attendants. These women proceeded to supervise the kids, pick up toys, and clean the toys and playground while the parents hung out. And we weren't sitting on uncomfortable benches around the edge of the room. We were seated on cushy chairs in a beautiful sunny room near TV screens displaying shots from security cameras placed around the entire restaurant. We were handed menus and ordered food! Actual food! Fancy food! And it was delicious! And as we ate and chatted, the kids ran around and had fun!

America, this is a brilliant concept. Why have we not picked up on this?

The boys had a fantastic time. I must admit, I did too. It's always fun watching my kids have a blast. For a little while they got to escape the stress and boredom of the move and just be kids. Boy #1 found a Korean boy who spoke enough English to play superheros with him. Boy#2 was a hit with the playground ladies and got lots of attention from them. Boy #3 only woke up long enough to eat.

We stayed longer than we had planned, and as we had nothing more pressing than a giant pile of laundry waiting, I was happy to stay and drink another coffee.

 (This is the very one I was served. Impressive, right?)