I wish I lived in Seoul

Disclaimer: This is going to be long. But you should read it anyways. 

We had work off Monday and Tuesday for Buddha's birthday, so Katie, Alissa, and I decided to make the most of it and go to Seoul for the long weekend. We got on a plane Friday night and were there in less than an hour. Awesome. Then we took a bus to Dave and Jamie Wood's house. They are friends I know from home and they've been teaching in Korea for 2 years. They let us stay with them for the weekend. They live in a Korean palace! 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room, kitchen, oven, blender, coffee maker...all luxuries for foreigners in this country. They also spent the weekend with us, showing us around and making sure we didn't get lost. Very very helpful.

Saturday we got up bright and early to conquer the city. Our first stop was a jewelry/accessory/fabric store in Namedemun market. It is 5 fun floors of everything you could ever need, want, or imagine to be crafty.

What do you do with this?

Can you find the person in this picture?

I left with a headband and 2 pairs of earrings. We had burgers for lunch. One of the great things about Seoul is that you can find a lot of Western restaurants and stores, so you can get things from home that you can't find in other parts of the country...like Ulsan.

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Then we went to Seoul tower. We took a cable car to get to the tower, then an elevator to get to the top of the building. It was kind of foggy so none of my pictures turned out that great, but you can see the whole city from the top.

Here it is!

The windows tell you how far away most major cities are. Chicago is 9, 596.52 kilometers

This is their work uniform. Jealous?

 

Next we went to a very famous palace in Korea called Gyeongbokgung. It's funny for the English teachers to visit because its in our curriculum - one of the lessons is about asking location, so we spent a few days saying "Where is Gyeongbokgung?" over and over and over again. Well, I found it! The original palace was burnt down by the Japanese, but they rebuilt it exactly the way it used to be. 

Palace entrance

Guard

I LOVE these ceilings! I will never get tired of them

 

After the palace we went and saw this river. Its famous - I forgot its name though. Back in the day it was used for fishing and transportation, then when Seoul became a giant city they thought they didn't need it and covered it up. A while ago they decided some nature in the city might be good, so they uncovered it and made it nice again.

It was decorated for Buddha's birthday

 

Next we ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Koreans make "pizza" but they like to add sweet potato, corn, and mayo to their pizza. We ate the real stuff this weekend. Then we went to the lantern parade. You guessed it...this was also for Buddha's birthday! All the floats lit up. 

People dressed in Hanbok - traditional clothes, and carried lanterns

Happy Buddhas

This was the end of Saturday. Busy busy day. Sunday we started with a traditional Korean folk village. They re-create the way people lived a long time ago. 

Working hard

We saw a drum dance, then took a picture with one of the performers. He is obviously really excited to be in our picture

 

Next was lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then Alissa had to leave - she had to work on Monday :( So me, Katie, Dave, and Jamie went to a baseball game. Baseball in Korea is AWESOME! It is as much about the entertainment as it is about the actual game. 

Things that are different:

1. You are expected to bring your own food in. We brought a whole pizza

2. The most expensive ticket is $15

3. There are cheerleaders

4. There is a whistle guy. He stands on a platform, dressed like a baseball player, and blows his whistle and gets the crowd excited

5. The traveling team brings their own cheerleaders and whistle guy

6. There is a 5th inning stretch. All the baseball players actually go out on the field and stretch again

 

Baseball was awesome. I'm definitely going to more Korean games. So that was the end of Sunday.

Monday Katie and I went to Dave and Jamie's school for the grand tour. They had to work. Their school is amazing, and they want me to work there someday. I wouldn't hate it. After that we went SHOPPING!!!!! Neither of us wanted to carry our suitcases around while shopping, so we put them in lockers in the subway. When it was time to go, we went back to the lockers and couldn't figure out how to open them. The machine was not in English. Katie eventually realized she'd gotten a text with a code she needed to type in. Great for her, but I never got a text. I was starting to freak out a little, because I needed my bag and we needed to not miss our flight. I went upstairs to a hotel and found the receptionist and said "My suitcase is stuck in the subway locker and I don't know what to do." I'm sure he was thinking "Why am I working today and what's wrong with this girl?" But, he came down into the subway with me and called some Korean help line and got my suitcase out! Yay! He is my favorite Korean. Then...we got on the bus. It took forever. The driver actually turned off the bus and got out to walk around for a while. Not like any of us have places to be.... We got to the airport at 5:06 for a 5:00 flight. Perfect. We ran up to the ticket desk and found out our flight was delayed! Yay again! Thank you God. And let me just tell you that was the most turbulent flight I've ever been on. No exaggeration...if I didn't have my seat belt on I probably would have fallen out a few times. So after a few crazy stressful hours I was home safe and sound.

I wish I lived in Seoul, because its so much fun! There are tons of things to do, and you can get American stuff too. I'll definitely be back :)