First thing of note about day five is that it was COLD. Like, -13 degrees cold. But, we didn't let that stop us!Whereas we all stuck together as a group the first few days, day 5 was our chance to explore on our own. Well, sort of. Me and Janet ended up doing our thing and Karen and Louis went of and did their thing but we ended up together by the boat ride. I also forgot to take notes on what I did this day, so hopefully I'm remembering everything correctly.

Labels: Korea, vacation

Day four started sometime mid afternoon due to the previous night’s activities. First stop was the Seoul Tower, which was your typical touristy high rise type place. Though, we did get to take a nifty cable car to get to it. The weather that day didn't provide for the best viewing conditions, but we were greatly entertained by the various places and distances that were printed on the towers glass. Of course it had the info for Tokyo, but I was surprised to find Denver up there as well seeing as how not even Hawaii got a mention! I also had this really cute Korean girl who was probably about the same age as my second graders, come up to me and hold my hand. Freaked me out at first as I wasn't expecting it, but when I looked down and she was staring up at me all excited and smiley like, I couldn't help but smile back. A few seconds after it happened, her parents realized what she did and snatched her away while apologizing. It was a nice memory to take away from my trip to the tower.



After the tower, we went to the Doctor Fish Cafe. Karen had heard about it and wanted to go. It's basically a cafe where they have these fish that eat dry skin off your feet. You go in, order, then head over to the foot bath to have your fee attended to by the fish, and then go eat and drink once you're ready. The fish felt pretty weird. Overall an interesting experience. The rose tea I got wasn't half bad either and came in a really nice tea set.



After that it was time for some food sampling. We had some Korean sushi, Krispy Kreme (well, I actually passed on this), and then some songyuesa which is lettuce wrapped grilled meat. Was really good and came with the best spicy miso ever!


After eating, we went a purika place. These are basically big fancy photo booths that let you decorate the photos and play around with the backgrounds. They're really popular in Japan as well. It was my first time and it was fun, it's just there were so many of us in the booth that I kept getting left out of the picture!


After picture taking we did some karaoke at this really fancy karaoke place and then called it a night. The floors at the karaoke place where quite festive!

Labels: Korea, vacation

The third day started out with a trip to the Gyeongbokgung Palace where we took an English tour. Gyeongbokgung Palace was the main and largest palace of the Joseon Dynasty and is the largest palace you can visit in Seoul. The tour was quite fun and the palace was gorgeous! A nice change up from all the Japanese temples.






After the palace we met up with one of Karen's friends and ate lunch at a famous spicy BBQ and tofu place. Theｎ we went shopping in this famous shopping district and I managed to find a Korea spoon for my grandmother and picked up a few other odds and ends.


Then we headed back to the hotel for a little rest and to get ready for a night out on the town. Once rested、 we headed out for a bite to eat at a restaurant call the Nutrition Center. Sounds appetizing, huh? It was actually pretty good. It's a restaurant specializing in chicken ginseng soups which are supposed to be good for your health.


After that, we met up with Hailey, Janet's friend from the night before, and went to Kanganam, which is on the other side of Seoul from where we were staying. After a nice long (but still cheap) taxi ride, we found Hailey and went to a bar to meet up with a bunch of other people. Bar was pretty fun. Our group had a table all to ourselves and everyone was really chill. The bar itself was huge and packed to the brim! The food and drinks were superb as well. Plus, while we were there, some kind of crazy Korean Death Note parody skit was playing on the TVs for a bit. It was hilarious!


After the bar, we headed out to do some clubbing. I, having never really been clubbing before, didn't really know what to expect. Originally the plan was the hit up a few clubs as that night was 'club night' and for one cover price you could hop between several clubs in the area. But, we ended up at one club in particular, Noise Basement, all night. Probably because we were such a large group and kept consistently losing each other in the crowd. Even so, it was still and pretty crazy and fun night. Not something I'd normally do on a vacation, but an experience worth having! Now I'll have to try out a club in Tokyo sometime.


Got back home about 4 or 5 am and then hit the sack.

Labels: castle, food, Korea, vacation

Day two in Korea started early. All four of us got up and took a taxi to the Lotte Hotel to meet at a DMZ tour place. Why a taxi? Because they are dirt cheap in Korea and ever cheaper when split between four people. And what's the DMZ? It's the demilitarized zone that basically separates North and South Korea. And you can't just go there on your own. You have to go with a tour.


Tour started out with a long bus ride. As we drove, the tour guide gave us the days run down and some instructions. I found the tour guide to be a bit pushy and she kept taking about a famous bridge but couldn't pronounce bridge properly! It was driving me crazy!

We had to stop at this strange fair ground and switch to a special DMZ bus and then headed to what's called the 3rd tunnel. Tour starts with a brief video on the history of the Korean War and North/South Korea relations. After that, it's to the tunnel. It's basically one of several secret tunnels that North Korea dug in order to try and invade South Korea. You take a trolley car down into the tunnel, walk around, and then come back up. You're not allowed to take pictures in the tunnel, so I don't have any, but it was a pretty basic tunnel so use your imagination.


Next stop was a mountain observatory where you can see into North Korea. There is also a large building/meeting conference area there, but we couldn't go in due to meetings that were happening that day. Although it was an observatory, there was a line painted on the ground and once past the line, you couldn't take pictures. Here's the best I could get of the North Korean landscape.



Next, it was to a train station. It doesn't have any working trains yet, but South Korea built in anticipation of the day that people can freely travel between the north and south.




Then it was off to lunch. I will say, one thing I greatly enjoyed while in Korea was the food. Super spicy and really good flavor. Most of it is good for your health too. Interestingly enough, during lunch there was this really loud explosion. After just having just gone on a military tour where they explained about old land mines and such, it was quite a shock. Of course, it wasn't a land mind, but there was a large truck across the street that was on fire so I assume its engine must have blown.




After lunch we headed to a place called Panumunjeom which is home of the Joint Security Area. It's the only place in the DMZ where the North and South connect. So, yes, I actually got to stand in North Korea for a few minutes. In the Joint Security Area, there are two different guards and the guard in the back is the one in North Korea. If you step behind him, it means that you are defecting to North Korea. They highly frown on those even thinking of doing this! During the tour, at one of the few little shops, I picked up some nice stamps for my grandfather but that was pretty much all I purchased while there.




After touring the DMZ all four of us did some wondering around and ate some of the wonderful, spicy, street vendor, food. Then we met up with one of Janet's friends and picked up some dinner. After dinner we went to what has to be the most awesome desert place ever! It was all done up like a garden fantasy land. All the chairs were either like porch swings or fancy flowery rocking chairs! And the desert was super tasty and cheap!




Then we browsed around and did some shopping. The only thing I picked up was an eyelash curler as we had plans to go clubbing the next day and I didn't have on. Plus, with my $1 eyelash curler purchase I also got this crazy pink feather pen as a bonus gift. The pen would have probably cost me $3 by itself in the States.

After that we did more wandering and I picked up some more vendor snacks from the same vendor I saw the first night I was in Korea.

The night ended on a rather poor note. We tried and tried and tried to get a taxi to take us back home, but they would all pull up slowly, hear where we wanted to go and then drive off! WTF! The only thing that made me feel any better about this was that it was happening to other people as well, not just us. Apparently, after a certain time, taxi drivers in Korea basically become independent agents and can refuse fairs as well as charge whatever they want. Eventually we did make it back home, but only by offering a taxi driver $20 for what should have been a $2, maybe $3, fare.

Labels: DMZ, Korea, vacation

My vacation started with a 4 hour long train ride to Narita airport along with Janet. When we got to the airport, I exchanged my yen for some won and then we picked up our boarding passes at the HIS (our travel company) booth and checked our luggage. We also stopped at the airport takoyaki place for a bite to eat.

Labels: food, Korea, shopping, vacation

Went on my first vacation out of the country over winter break. I went to South Korea and stayed in Seoul for about 5 days. Like my Kyoto trip, it's gonna take a while to get everything posted, so, for now, you can check out a sample of the pictures I took here. Enjoy!

Labels: Korea, vacation