Seoul day 2 - Changdeokgung Palace and the Secret Garden in Japanese + Namdaemun Market

Before we continue, we are really sorry there are no pictures yet. This literally affects the quality if our posts.

Anyway, after another difficult night (up from 1-3:30 am), we finally got up and, as seems to be a recurring theme, changed our plans.

We started at Changdeokgung Palace and the accompanying Secret Garden. Since Talia is and overachiever, we already knew that the Secret Garden is only accessibly by guided tour, but we missed the first tour early in the morning and the next was only at 3:30 pm.

We were THIS CLOSE to just skipping the Secret Garden and going to the palace alone when we suddenly realized there was a Japanese tour about to start in an hour (an hour that it would take us to tour the palace anyway) so we got tickets to the Japanese tour. We knew everyone woukd say kawaii (cute) to Sophie anyway, so we understood what was important!

This ended up being a great decision because the Secret Garden is GORGEOUS. We know it's probably stunning when the flowers are already in full bloom, but we loved it anyway. But, boy, were those a tiring 3+ hours!

We had read that there are sections inaccessible to strollers in the garden, so we took our baby carrier instead and made our way to the palace.

And then our backs broke by the time we reached the palace, so we took one of the free strollers (yes!) they had there (as they have at every tourist attraction). In retrospect, this was a wise decision - our own stroller's wheels probably would have gotten ruined anyway, and we were able to access everything but the final stop with the stroller (though we had to lift it up a couple of stairs a few times).

Our next stop was for lunch where we discovered Sophie definitely loves dumplings! Though she's definitely becoming harder to keep up with now that she challenges everything that breathes (and, you know, that doesn't).

After lunch (at 3:30 pm), we returned to our hotel in Gangnam (Style) so we could take a nap because you know what they say, a family that naps together, .

In the evening, we went to Namdaemun Market, which was nice, but not unlike Shuk Hacarmel (the market in Tel Aviv) in Korean. Other than the REALLY weird seafood stuff on a stick (we took pictures).

Our night ended in the morning, after another difficult night where Sophie thought 1 am is an EXCELLENT time to walk around the room unassisted. She'll probably say a new word tomorrow night.

Cute in Korean, maybe.