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| i love asia |
Current location: Seoul, South Korea
Wow. Since my arrival in Seoul, I have been moving non-stop. We landed in Korea at about 3:30 pm on Sunday afternoon and since then it has been a constant stream of events.
Once we checked in and unpacked and got settled a little bit, we all knew we had to get out of the room or else we would fall asleep right away. I have learned from past experiences that it is essential to stay up until it is night time wherever you are in order to adjust to the time difference. Knowing this, we decided to head out and get some dinner. We ended up in the Myeongdong about 10 minutes from the hotel. This place was alive. People are streaming through the alley ways making their way from store to store. There were people everywhere. Thousands of stores, restaurants, and street vendors provided quite a site.
After our meal, we just walked around the area and did some exploring. One main observation I found was that Korean's have some of the cutest fashion I have ever seen. The streets are plastered with tons of small boutiques with the most adorable clothes which are surprisingly WAY cheaper than the US
After some wandering, we headed back to the hotel and ended up crashing for the evening.
Monday morning
Due to jet-lag and the lack of adjusting to the time difference (13 hours) I woke up at 6 am. I pranced down to the gym and ended doing yoga in a huge studio all by myself. It was wonderful.
We had all the intention of going on a city tour for the day but when we tried to buy tickets, we learned that they were closed on Mondays.
So working around this, we started on a quest to find my mom's old elementary school and house. Wow, this was quite an adventure. We started on foot towards the area of the school and to my surprise, ended up finding way easier than I had thought.
These two ladies were quite a site to watch. Aunt Shin has not returned to Korea since they left 36 years ago, and so watching them interact while reminiscing very interesting. They were like giddy little girls chatting about how they used to play on these stairs and look over the edge and be scared of this bathroom and so on. I soaked it in like a sponge. I have never seen my mother act this way; she was a little chatterbox, spewing out all of these memories that she had of the school.
We continued on a very long treck to find their old house. Along the way we got lost, so lost in fact that when we asked people for directions, they replied saying we were close to a half hour from where wanted to be! Here is a picture from Kyunghee Gung-a place we stumbled upon when we were lost
Finally, after hopping into a cab, we found it. The house no longer is standing, but both my mom and Aunt Shin remembered the street. Sidenote-the weather became increasingly hot and by the time we found the street of their old house we were roughing it. We headed back to the hotel and dropped some of our layers off and went out for lunch.
Namdaemun Market was the place to go. We stepped into a small alleyway and were immediately beckoned by many women to eat at their "station." They grabbed at us and kept asking us to eat at their spot. We finally settled into a small 5 person station and ordered Kal Gook Su.
YUM! Absolutely delicious and less than $4. Following lunch we walked around a little bit, ended up climbing a mountain and taking a cable car to Namsan Tower. The view of Seoul was beautiful. The mountains surround the city and it almost reminds me of Rio minus the ocean. 12 million people live in Seoul, and from the views up there, Seoul is almost overwhelming large.
Right after this, we headed back to the hotel for some down time. Gina and I went to the pool to swim and hit the hot tub while Aunt Shin layed down for a nap.
Around 3:30 we started off on our way to visit my mom's Ah Jae Si (uncle). After figuring out the subway system, we made it. Their home was about 45 minutes from the hotel and absolutely wonderful. Upon arrival we were greeted by Ah Jum Ma (auntie) and we sat on the couches and began chatting. Pictures were brought out and the conversation never subsided. I ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half and was awoken when it was time to head to dinner.
Its interesting meeting family that I've never met before-considering I cannot really communicate with them, it makes it even more of an experience. Either way, it ended up being hilarious and a few hours with great company. We ate at a small local restaurant, sat on the floor, and I even tried rice wine for the first time. Below is a picture of my mom, aunt, mom's uncle, mom's aunt, mom's cousin, and me outside the restaurant!
AFTER all of that, I called Sara and met up with her at her metro stop. From there we proceeded to go to an Irish pub for some drinks. It was awesome seeing a familiar face in a new city and catching up with her was great. It had been since our Vietnam/Taiwan trip in March and our lives have drastically changed since then. It's funny how we had chatted about meeting up in Korea at some point and both of us kind of brushed it off like "haha wouldn't that be fun"-but the fact that it became true is pretty cool. I would have never expected the next time for us to see each other would be in Seoul!
We went to club Eden which was in the basement of the Ritz Carlton. The main reason we went there was because all week foreigners get in for free. But on a Monday night, the place was looking pretty dead. We waited it out and our night ended up being quite hilarious and made for good people watching. Around 1 am we departed and both went home.
Ok that is plenty of writing and just one day of events-It is Wednesday morning right now about 6 am-i can't sleep) and we are celebrating Korean Thanksgiving today!!! Tons of food and some more family...
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