Today was our final day in Korea - tomorrow we fly to Japan. Today, for a change, went FAIRLY according to plan. Our first stop was the Kimchi Museum at the COEX mall, the largest underground mall in Korea. And OMIGOODNESS it is huge. It's a miracle we didn't get lost.
Kimchi is a national food in Korea that is served at every restaurant with every meal you have, other than maybe McDonald's. It's fermented cabbage, turnip, or a handful of other vegetables, and it is delicious, but spicy - sometimes too spicy (but yey for our sinuses!)
While we thought it would just be fun, it ended up being really interesting - we even got to sample some kinds of kimchi that we hadn't had yet, and come on, who DOESN'T love spicy chili vegetables at 10 in the morning?
As we made our way out, we saw a bunch of young women dressed in neon blue and OMIGOODNESS we stumbled into a Samsung conference where the were displaying all of their phones and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, Talia needs a Samsung Note 2 for her birthday. You have 5 months to raise the funds.
After about 20 minutes, Rony managed to pull Talia out of there, though he couldn't get her to shut up for half an hour, BUT HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING HIMSELF INTO WHEN HE MARRIED HER, so really, he can't complain.
But we digress. Regretfully, we left this really awesome mall because we had palaces to see, souveniers to buy...
We had read online that Gyeongbokgung Palace should take about an hour, and it was gorgeous. Like the other palaces, it has a very rich history that can be summed up in one sentence: Built 600-700 years ago, the king held his meetings here, and then the Japanese burnt it down. This particular palace, while stunning, is a complete reconstruction from about a decade ago. Our closets are older.
Even though it was supposed to take about an hour, after almost 2 hours we left before we even saw everything because we almost ate dirt. We had lunch at the palace restaurant because we were incapable of walking farther, and we have to say, each place we ate here has been incredibly delicious!
Our next stop was Insa-dong, again, because it is a great place to buy souveniers and we wanted to get some more lf that awesome candy we got the last time for our families.
We headed back to the hotel for our last night in South Korea, not before taking our picture at the (Hoppa) Gangnam (Style) station, because, dude, they check your pictures at the airport (not really).
As Rony put Sophie to sleep, Talia ran out to the Lotto Mart nearby to buy the really awesome rain and wind stroller cover that all the babies here have. We hadn't seen many babies at ALL, but every single one of them had this cover and it is not only gorgeous, but very functional - it goes all around the stroller, so Sophie can't pulll it off AND THAT IT PRICELESS. Plus, you can open the front flap to take her out and put her in without having to remove it, and she can see through it perfectly and STOP JUDGING US, THIS IS OUR LIFE NOW. The best part is that she LOVES it - she feels like she has her own space and sometimes tries to close it herself when the flap is open.
OK, enough with the excitement about stroller covers, this is the longest paragraph we have written to date!
We were very sad to leave Korea. It's beautiful, the people are amazingly nice (very similar to the Japanese), and we didn't get to see a quarter of what we wanted. We will DEFINITELY be back. On the upside, Sophie won't complain that she only got to go to Korea when she was too small to remember!
At the Seoul subway stations, we had the distinct pleasure of learning how things should be done:
1) If you miss the elevator, you will fall into a sea of water.
2) If there is blood on the floor, find children to clean it up.
3) If you are a mother, do not climb under the rail to skip paying or your daughter will cry with embarrassment.
4) If there is an old lady in the vicinity, help her to her seat by humping her.
5) If a woman is about to give birth - deliver her baby.
We finally uploaded our pictures from Korea - you can see them here.
Kimchi is a national food in Korea that is served at every restaurant with every meal you have, other than maybe McDonald's. It's fermented cabbage, turnip, or a handful of other vegetables, and it is delicious, but spicy - sometimes too spicy (but yey for our sinuses!)
While we thought it would just be fun, it ended up being really interesting - we even got to sample some kinds of kimchi that we hadn't had yet, and come on, who DOESN'T love spicy chili vegetables at 10 in the morning?
As we made our way out, we saw a bunch of young women dressed in neon blue and OMIGOODNESS we stumbled into a Samsung conference where the were displaying all of their phones and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, Talia needs a Samsung Note 2 for her birthday. You have 5 months to raise the funds.
After about 20 minutes, Rony managed to pull Talia out of there, though he couldn't get her to shut up for half an hour, BUT HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING HIMSELF INTO WHEN HE MARRIED HER, so really, he can't complain.
But we digress. Regretfully, we left this really awesome mall because we had palaces to see, souveniers to buy...
We had read online that Gyeongbokgung Palace should take about an hour, and it was gorgeous. Like the other palaces, it has a very rich history that can be summed up in one sentence: Built 600-700 years ago, the king held his meetings here, and then the Japanese burnt it down. This particular palace, while stunning, is a complete reconstruction from about a decade ago. Our closets are older.
Even though it was supposed to take about an hour, after almost 2 hours we left before we even saw everything because we almost ate dirt. We had lunch at the palace restaurant because we were incapable of walking farther, and we have to say, each place we ate here has been incredibly delicious!
Our next stop was Insa-dong, again, because it is a great place to buy souveniers and we wanted to get some more lf that awesome candy we got the last time for our families.
We headed back to the hotel for our last night in South Korea, not before taking our picture at the (Hoppa) Gangnam (Style) station, because, dude, they check your pictures at the airport (not really).
As Rony put Sophie to sleep, Talia ran out to the Lotto Mart nearby to buy the really awesome rain and wind stroller cover that all the babies here have. We hadn't seen many babies at ALL, but every single one of them had this cover and it is not only gorgeous, but very functional - it goes all around the stroller, so Sophie can't pulll it off AND THAT IT PRICELESS. Plus, you can open the front flap to take her out and put her in without having to remove it, and she can see through it perfectly and STOP JUDGING US, THIS IS OUR LIFE NOW. The best part is that she LOVES it - she feels like she has her own space and sometimes tries to close it herself when the flap is open.
OK, enough with the excitement about stroller covers, this is the longest paragraph we have written to date!
We were very sad to leave Korea. It's beautiful, the people are amazingly nice (very similar to the Japanese), and we didn't get to see a quarter of what we wanted. We will DEFINITELY be back. On the upside, Sophie won't complain that she only got to go to Korea when she was too small to remember!
At the Seoul subway stations, we had the distinct pleasure of learning how things should be done:
1) If you miss the elevator, you will fall into a sea of water.
3) If you are a mother, do not climb under the rail to skip paying or your daughter will cry with embarrassment.
4) If there is an old lady in the vicinity, help her to her seat by humping her.
We finally uploaded our pictures from Korea - you can see them here.
LOL :-)
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