Korea day 3 - Korean Folk Village and Garosugil (tree-lined street)

We had yet another difficult night, where Sophie only fell asleep at 1:30 am ("Look! Mama, Dada, I am walking without holding anything!"), we woke up at 7:30 (used an actual alarm clock, thankyouverymuch) and headed out to Suwon where, again, our plans changed AND WE DIDN'T ACTUALLY GO TO SUWON.

Suwon is a town outside of Seoul that has a really nice (so we hear) fortress. The town nearby has the Korean Folk Village, an incredible reproduction of Korean life a gazillion years ago. Having read ahead of time that transportation is more limited to the folk village, we decided to start there.

We read that the subway takes an hour and 45 minutes to arrive, but the bus takes 40 minutes, so we braved the local bus system to save time, an excellent decision in retrospect. We got great directions and instructions from Trip Advisor, and when we located the bus stop, a local man who works there MADE US TAKE A PICTURE OF THE BUS ROUTE so we could tell the driver when we need to get off. Seriously, he wouldn't stop rambling in Korean until we took a picture with our cell phone of that AND another bus route that we weren't even interested in.

Because we had a baby in tow, we sat in the front seat, and once we passed through the small town after the freeway (thank you, Trip Advisor), we told the driver the name of the place in Korean and he told us when to get off.

We KNEW having a baby was a good idea!

What we didn't expect, however, was this incredible love for babies that everyone here has, from teenagers to the elderly. Everywhere we went, everyone who saw Sophie just melted and had to touch her. Luckily for them, Sophie loves the attention. She has been getting so much attention that we will probably have problems when we get back. She'll be all WHERE MY PEEPS BE AT? Good thing she doesn't have a sibling on the way or she'd be all, I'M OUTTA HERE.

We entered the village and were literally trampled by a group of teen girls. Not by accident - they saw Sophie and gushed. They took pictures of her, they took pictures WITH HER, and helped Rony reach 2 important conclusions:

1) We can ask any random stranger on the subway to babysit and have a night to ourselves.
2) Sophie can shoot a commercial in Korea and have her college tuition paid for. Or her braces, y'all have seen her teeth.

Once the group of girls left, ANOTHER group of teens came (boys included) and OMIGOODNESS we've been here for half an hour and we STILL HAVEN'T MOVED. But it was fun, and Sophie put on a show for them, giggling, walking, and stealing their phones, and we are on vacation with a baby, so we can't expect the same trip we had last time, and we knew it from the get go.

We LOVED the folk village. They invested a lot of effort into making it an incredible experience of any age, right down to the tiny details.

Things we learned at the village that we have been doing wrong our entire lives:

1) Sleeping early on New Year's Eve makes your eye rows white, so stay up.
2) When pregnant, dreams of a long eggplant, pepper, and sun mean you are expecting a boy; A short eggplant, green pepper, and moon mean you are expecting a girl.
3) Neighbors should peep in the bridal room on the first night of marriage.

Also, here is a list of jobs we will never have:

1) Tight-rope walker

We had such an awesome time, and, after 2 really cold days, we spent the day without our coats on, and it was splendid. Sophie fell asleep ON SCHEDULE in the early afternoon so we didn't leave to give her more time to nap, and ended up not making it to the fortress because we wanted to try to get her back on a normal sleeping schedule so that, you know, we don't accidentally leave her in Korea cause we are so exhausted.

Having changed our plans AGAIN, we decided to go to Garosugil, the tree-lined street close to our hotel. It is, indeed, lined with trees, however those trees are barren at the end of March, but not all was lost because:

1) We let Sophie walk a LOT, in hopes that she would tire enough to sleep at a normal hour (mission accomplished, she fell asleep around 7:30)
2) We had the most delicious waffle ever created - a walnut waffle topped with caramel and honey-roasted nuts.

Best. Dinner. Ever.

We hope to have pictures up for you soon, but we probably won't until we reach Japan. Talk to you soon!