See all the things! Part 2: City Tour Bus

As part of our time in Seoul, we decided to spend a day hitting multiple things and decided that the hop on, hop off city tour bus would be an easier way to find things than taking the subway - faster and air conditioned, less stress trying to find locations of things. Yeah... it didn't quite work out that way... but whatever.

After getting our tickets and hopping on at Gwanghwamun, we decided our first stop would be the Korean War Memorial. We were dropped off on the side of a busy road and left to find it on our own. Word to the wise: there are NO SIGNS in English for the memorial. Just FYI. We wandered for about 30 minutes before asking a security looking guy near where we were dropped off who pointed us towards a big arched sign in Korean that led to a deserted and very official looking parking lot where we found a guy who pointed us in the right direction of another official looking building where we finally climbed a bunch of stairs to walk down a lovely corridor filled with names of foreign soldiers who died in the Korean war. There was a statue of some kind as well and a small cafe.

See this? Now you know you are there. 

The view outside

We had wandered so much that we missed our bus so we had to hang out until the next one. We got something to drink, some ice cream, and then headed out so we would get to the bus at the time the schedule we had seen posted at the bus stop said it would be there (which, by the way, was a different time than the schedule we had been given when we bought our tickets). Of course, the bus just kind of comes when it wants to, anyways, so it didn't really matter what schedule we looked at. That's fun, too.

Then it was off to our next stop: the National History Museum! At this point we realized two things: 1) We've learned a lot of Korean History from watching historical Korean dramas, and 2) We know very little about Korean history. Solution? More dramas, of course!

The museum is beautiful and free (an added bonus). We wandered a bit before we realized we were both fading and in dire need of sustenance. After some foods and more wandering of the museum, we decided to move on to our next stop on our adventure.

This stop was the hanok village. A hanok is a traditional Korean house. There is supposed to be this neighborhood you can walk around and admire the lovely houses, but I think where we went wasn't that. Wherever we went, it was fun anyways. We got to wander around some traditional house grounds and see the pretty architecture.

This is also where we saw the doctor, which I was remiss in saying was at the palace in my last post (oops!).

Mindy takin' some pictures

The BESTEST part of this stop was that we got there just in time to see a taekwondo demonstration. We came in after they had brought up some audience volunteers to break some boards. One lady had a dress on and they showed her how to kick and when she went to do it the guy threw himself in front of her so people wouldn't see up her dress. Good job, dude. Suuuper funny. But the guy broke his board so, good job!

After that, they got up and did a big presentation onstage. Now, I got to see a lot of taekwondo when I was in high school because I would often take my sister, Jesi, to taekwondo practice. But THIS was an entirely different sort of demo. This was one of those, "Let's be impressive and show off our action movie moves" kind of demos. They did crazy flips and multiple board breaks where they would run and jump off of someone's back to get to a crazy high board. Very cool.

There was also a dance which was really cute. It was like this guy trying to meditate and this girl comes out and is teasing him and when he tries to catch her she makes him look all clumsy and adorable. Loved it.

Cute AND funny!

After the performance and a bit of wandering, we decided to head back to the bus. We had plans to hit up a palace, but, unfortunately, they were all closed for the day. That was fine with me, because I was fading fast. I was still jet lagged and it had been a long, HOT day. We got back to the guesthouse and Mindy guided me to dinner (we grabbed some spicy chicken with tater tots and deok (chewy rice cake) from a street vendor) and we fell asleep watching dramas... ok. I fell asleep and Mindy turned off the drama and said I needed to go to bed. Whatever.

Next up is the final installment of "See all the things!" with our trip to Jeju-do!

See all the things! Part 1

In my first post about my recent trip to Korea, I mentioned that Mindy and I had 3 goals for our trip:

1. See all the things
2. Buy all the things
3. Eat all the things

We did a pretty damn good job of accomplishing these goals. And, though I can name at least a dozen things off the top of my head that we didn't see, this post is dedicated to how we worked to accomplish the first of these goals: See all the things!!

Museums

We went to several museums on our trip: the National History Museum, the National Folk Museum, the COEX Mall Aquarium (I'm counting it), a museum about King Sejong (the king who got the current Korean alphabet - hangul - going), and an Andy Warhol exhibit.

This history and folk museums were nice, calm, air conditioned breaks from our treks across Seoul. The museums I've seen in Seoul have been beautifully laid out with lovely displays and wonderfully chosen artifacts. Some truly top notch museums!

There's a big statue of King Sejong in front of Gyeoungbokgung Palace and underneath the statue is a museum about him. He was a really amazing dude. He wanted to invent an alphabet that would be easy to learn so all citizens could learn to read. He not only commissioned the development of hangul (the alphabet), but then used it HIMSELF to transcribe (or translate...) some huge classical epic to both improve and make sure it worked. Talk about dedication!

King Sejong!

 A lot of the things in the museum are dedicated to the Korean alphabet. The walls had things carved all over them, there was a calligraphy section where people copied classic poems onto beautiful scrolls in calligraphy. So pretty.

This says "Min" for Mindy!

This bench is made of Korean letters! Cool!

We also went to the COEX aquarium, which was really fun, too! It was inside this gigantic mall - the COEX Mall. Lots of fish, sharks, penguins, otters, and beavers! It was my first time seeing the namesake of my town - Beaverton - in the flesh. I couldn't decide if they were adorably or freakishly ugly. Still not sure.

It was kind of dark in the aquarium, so most of the pictures that aren't just, you know, fish, are kind of blurry. But Mindy got this cute (and not AT ALL creepy) picture of a couple standing in front of the giant viewing tank. Aw, so precious!

"Why is the foreigner taking pictures of us?" "Ignore her... maybe she'll leave."

The Andy Warhol exhibit was... a mistake. I thought we were getting tickets to something else. It was cool, but I really didn't care. Did you know he made movies? Me neither. From the clips I saw, I don't think I ever want to see any of his movies all the way through. :/

Gyeoungbokgung Palace

There are several palaces across Seoul and Gyeoungbokgung is the main palace. We, of course, decided to go on probably the hottest of all the days we were in Seoul. Nice choice.

I LOVE the colors at the palaces!

I made Mindy pull into the little shop after a few minutes to cool down in the air conditioning and grab a cold drink. I was so sweaty and hot! Ew. Luckily I carried around a hand fan like an old lady. I got a tasty ginger, cinnamon punch and Mindy got some kind of rice drink. Both were very yummy and cold (the important thing).

We were almost ready to go when we got pulled aside by a lady in a hanbok to try a traditional medicine experience. Why not? So we went into a little building (after taking off our shoes), read through a list of symptoms, and determined that Mindy has a cold body type, and I have a hot body type (obviously). Then we were given teas for our body types (Mindy got chamomile and I got peppermint). Then we were given a form to fill out before we saw the doctor. At this point the questions got a little too personal so we snuck out before meeting with the doctor.

*Oops! I guess that happened at another place: the Hanok Village! My bad!

Trick Eye Museum and Ice Museum

After our exhausting day in on Jeju Island (more on that later), we took a relaxing day in Hongdae to visit the Trick Eye Museum. It's a total touristy spot that has a bunch of fun paintings and backdrops to take fun photos against.

With our ticket, we also got entry into the Ice Museum. We had no clue what it was until we walked into a freezer with a bunch of ice sculptures. It was FREEZING! We totally should have gone there first while we were still hot from being outside! As it was, it made outside feel nice! Super cute. And, of course, there was an ice toilet with a little poop inside. Ha!

Namsan Tower

The North Seoul Tower in Namsan park is a big tower on top of a big hill in the middle of Seoul. We took a cable car up the mountain and then an elevator up to the observation deck where we could get a 360 degree view of Seoul!. The view was amazing.

 

One of the cool things about North Seoul Tower is that people go up there and hook locks on the railing. They take them down periodically and there are these tree things everywhere covered in locks. People write their names, messages, etc. It's supposed to be a super romantic place or something. I don't know why, really. I guess it could be fun to go with a sweetheart. A lot of the locks are put there by couples with sweet things written on them. One of these looks like someone proposed up there. How sweet!

"She said yes! :D"

As we were leaving the tower to head back to the cable car, we came across a spear demonstration! Super awesome cool!! One guy sliced through a bunch of boards like they were nothing! So cool!

Hello Kitty Cafe

I don't know how big of a Hello Kitty fan I am... but I love cute things with cute designs, pink, pastels, adorable animals, etc. And, for a long time, Hello Kitty was the go to for me for these cute designs and accessories. Now there are so many more choices out there (thank you, internet! and all of Korea's stationary stores!!), that Hello Kitty is no longer really my "go to," but I still love her. So when I heard there was a Hello Kitty cafe, of COURSE I wanted to go. There was actually an entire hotel/resort place on Jeju Island, but Mindy said no. Whatever.

HELLO KITTY HOTEL ROOM

While there was a Hello Kitty cafe in Hongdae where our guest house was, it was in the opposite direction of everything else we wanted to see, so I decided not to pursue it in light of my ultimate desire to not walk in the heat anymore than I had to. But, then! On our final full day in Seoul, we stumbled upon the one in Myoungdong!

Even though we were still full from a giant lunch, I made Mindy go up for a brownie with a powder sugar kitty face on it and seriously sweet lemonade in cute cups. Once you stopped trying to think of the brownie as a "brownie" and just as a chocolate treat, it tasted pretty good.

And everything was PINK!!

Noraebang!

A noraebang is a private singing room you can rent by the hour. Prices vary depending on the place, quality, and time of day. We went to two different ones and each time had a blast. The first time we had some difficulty figuring out the remote (which is HUGE with WAY TOO MANY BUTTONS). The second time we couldn't figure out the air conditioning. But we sang our hearts out and had a blast anyways.

So much fun!

Next up: See all the things! Part 2: Seoul City Tour!

The Fabulous Return to Seoul!

As you might know, I recently went on a trip to Seoul, South Korea with my friend Mindy (we realized we've known each other for 10 years! How is that possible!?!). We had been planning this trip since I started graduate school in 2012 and decided it would be my graduation trip for whien I finished my graduate degree (done, baby!).

We looked up places to see, things to do, foods to eat, and we came up with three goals for our trip (people with graduate degrees are very goal oriented, after all). Here they are:

1. See all the things.
2. Buy all the things
3. Eat all the things.

I think we did a pretty decent job on all accounts. If you read this blog then we are most likely also friends on Facebook (wazzup), so you've probably seen all of the pictures I posted along the way. I don't post often (at least not as often as my mom!), but I wanted to share some of our experiences in real time while we were there.

Overall, it was an absolutely amazing trip. I'll share some more detailed posts about how we managed to succeed in achieving our three goals, but for the curious, here is a quick timeline of what we did on each day of our trip (you might see a few places come up multiple times *cough*myeongdong*cough*)"

Day 1 (and 2? depends on how you see the flying out Monday and arriving Tuesday night...): Fly to Korea!!

Haven't seen each other in so long!!

Day 2: Shopping in Namdaemun and Myeongdong

I swear, I left SOME things in the stores!

Day 3: Seoul City Tour bus hop on hop off tour to see the Korean War Memorial, National History Museum, and Hanok Village.

Mindy takes a lot of pictures... and hers were way better than mine, too

Day 4: Shopping in Myeongdong and Elisabeth the musical

My favorite German musical in Korean!!

Day 5: King Sejong museum, Gyeongbokgung palace, and the National Folk Museum.

The lovely palace

Day 6: Church (hello, English branch!), Hyundai Department Store, Jurassic World at the Megaplex
Day 7: COEX Mall and aquarium

Wazzup, guys?!

Day 8: Fly out and back for a day trip on Jeju Island to take the hop on hop off tour bus to see the Jeju Incident Memorial, the Stone Park and Stone museum, Dongmun Market (the good market), Seomun Market (the crappy, empty market), and dragon head rock.

Part of the Jeju Incident Memorial

Day 9: Leave the guesthouse around 2pm (we were very tired) for "lunch" followed by the Trick Eye Museum and walking around Hongdae.

I'M TALL!!!

Day 10: Dongdaemun History and Culture park, Andy Warhol Art Exhibit, Design Plaza, and shopping in the Dongdaemun Migliore building.

Nine floors of nonstop shopping in the Migliore building!

Day 11: Final (haha) day shopping in Myeongdong and Namsan Tower

The view from North Seoul Tower

Day 12: Hongdae Free Market, Times Square Seoul, and seeing "Pixel" at the CGV theater. Otherwise known as the day Mindy almost bought a puppy.

EAT ALL THE BINGSOO!!

Day 13: Church (goodbye, English branch!), lunch with the friend of Mindy's friend, shopping in Namdaemun and Myeongdong (really, real last time), teatime with my friend Rachel, hit a noraebang (singing room), and a fancy sticker booth

The adorable Rachel (who is going to have a baby soon!! OMG!!)

Day 14: Took a final walk around Hongdae, grabbed lunch, hit the noraebang, and then flew back home *quiet sobs*

Our final (delicious) Korean meal in Hongdae!

Stay tuned for more updates on my Korean Adventure!!