Day 3 in South Korea consisted of a lovely morning at Starbucks, a markets tour, and the North Seoul Tower!
This Starbucks was in Insadong and very close to our hotel. Lesley and I miss getting to hang out at coffee shops, so we were super excited to just spend a quiet morning reading the Word and sipping some coffee!
Next to Starbucks was a restaurant that was on one of the Kdramas I just finished watching! The orange sign had pictures from that scene of the show.
We fell for this tourist trap, but they were very entertaining! They make traditional Korean desserts out of honey. We bought one box. It's similar to taffy.
Some antiques in the Insadong shopping area.
We ate at this restaurant for lunch that serves gimbap, the Korean version of sushi!
Gimbap is seaweed filled with rice, egg, veggies, and meat. It was pretty good!
Throwing up the Korean peace signs!
I'm still posing China style!
Later that afternoon, we took a double-decker bus tour of all of the markets around Seoul.
Gwangjang Traditional Market
This market was mainly made up of food and snacks.
Do you see me?
Many stalls had Western treats! It was very tempting.
Korean version of pancakes.
Various fermented veggies
This vendor was sweet and had a great smile!
The circle box with the cotton on it is the kind of powder my grandmother used to wear! Crazy! (This picture is for you mom)
Dokkaebi Market was similar to a flea market.
I asked one of the vendors to take this picture. It was quite a task.
Antique store
Traditional Medicine Market
Dried frogs...eek!
Bundle of dried centipedes anyone?
We ended the night at the North Seoul Tower. We got to see a great view of the city and realize how big Seoul actually is! It's the world's second largest metropolitan area, behind Tokyo.
Day 4 started off with a hike up a trail near the Blue House, where the president of South Korea lives. Online it was rated a 2 out of 5 star trail for difficulty. That was a lie! As you can see below, I was not in hiking gear by any means. It was an extremely steep hike made up of only stairs. My legs were killing me for 4 days after the hike!
I couldn't take many pictures along the trail because it wasn't allowed. There were security guards along the entire trail, since it is located near the Blue House.
We made it to the top!
I would like to thank Lesley for the next 2 pictures. Haha Classic Asia!
One of the guard towers along the trail. There were soldiers in each tower with guns looking out over the area. Kind of freaky!
Korean tour group decked out in appropriate hiking attire.
I made it to the top of the rock in my sandals! Rock star! (haha get it!)
At the bottom of the trail. We were exhausted.
Next on the agenda for the day was taking a stroll along the Cheonggyecheon, a man made river in the middle of the city. It is a really neat area of the city.
We took a break to rest our aching feet.
Snack time! This is called dukbokki. It is a rice cake covered in a red sauce. I have to say this was my least favorite food of the trip, but apparently many people love it. It is everywhere in Korea.
After refueling, we went down to the Han River and hung out for a few hours and took a ferry tour of the city.
On the last day of our trip, we of course had to go to Gangnam District. We couldn't have come all the way to Seoul and not seen the famous district the song is about. We decided Gangnam was our best shot at seeing a Korean celebrity because this is the district most of their entertainment companies are located. Unfortunately, our dream of seeing a Kdrama/ Kpop star didn't come true, but we did get pictures with the guys in the picture below.
One of our favorite Korean bands is 2PM. Again, don't judge me!
My favorite band member!
SM Entertainment building
We are 100% certain there was a celebrity in the black van. According to our knowledge of Kpop stars, which is completely based off of Korean TV shows, these are the types of vans the celebs ride in. We even saw the guy pass a dress to someone in the van. The more I type, the more I realize how lame I sound, but I don't care!
In front of JYP Entertainment, who represents 2PM, 2AM, Miss A, and The Wonder Girls.
See that Dunkin' Donuts right across the street from JYP...we might or might not have sat there and waited for celebs for 30 minutes.
We asked someone to take our picture and they didn't even get the word Gangnam in the picture! Oh well!
Gangnam style store!
PSY stuff was everywhere!
Sorry this post is lacking some enthusiasm. I'm kind of over the whole blog thing. I guess it's okay since I will be leaving China in 3 weeks. Only a few more blog posts to go!
