The Smiths meet Seoul and Farewell

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No trip to Korea is complete without a tour of Seoul, the bustling capital of Korea. With a population of over 11 million (17 million during the work day) this place is as frustrating as it is amazing!

The experience began with the frustrating as Mike and family attempted to drive to Seoul at 9pm on Friday evening. Taking the train from Busan to Seoul, I was faster than they were going a third of the distance by car! Finally they arrived and we found a hotel that looked nice enough...at first glance! As we were checking in and told them we'd be staying 2 nights, the receptionist said "Oh, people don't usually sleep overnight in our motel"...great...So we go into our rooms, which were huuuuuge, with 2 big screen tvs, a couch, nice bathroom...and a special treat in one room - a used condom! So we have struck out twice now getting our families in love motels... Following a quick room change, we were settled in finally!

Saturday morning we had a nice McDonald's breakie where we decided the best way to see the sights was the split up, Mike and I each taking them to different places. I took Maryanne and Christine and the plan was to go to Gyeongbuk Palace. On our way, we walked down Insadong street which is my favourite place in Korea - it's a traditional street with tea shops and crafts for sale. Well, suffice it to say that my guests liked it too, because an hour later we were nowhere near the Palace and had our hands full of purchases! On our way back to the hotel to drop off the loot, we stumbled upon a traditional Korean wedding ceremony presentation and stuck around to watch that. It was great to see a traditional wedding that is sooo very different from weddings as we are used to them. The colourful outfits, the giving of gifts, the somber ceremony, the dancing was all very interesting! Finally, we made our way to the Palace and toured around for a while. We saw lots of parts of the palace that I hadn't seen on our first visit at Chuseok, so that was great.

Leaving the temple, we met up with the guys, returning from the Korean War Memorial and grabbed a late lunch. Walking to the restaurant, we were standing in front of the famous Jongno Tower when all of a sudden a big group of police officers swarmed in around us, clearly doing riot practice in the middle of downtown Seoul. Well, most of us managed to run out of the crowd before we got stuck...except for Larry! He was kinda stuck in the crowd with all the police around him, running in formations with riot gear and all!

Safely out of harms way, we walked around Insadong again, finishing souvenir shopping...for that day! We enjoyed a nice samgipsal dinner and against everyone's wishes dragged the crew to a noraebang! In noraebang's you get your own room with a karaoke screen and choose your songs to sing. We had the room for 1 1/2 hours and it only took a few songs for the shyness to wear off and the group to start really singing the songs!

Sunday morning after breakfast we ventured over tp the 63 Building, a very tall Building along the Han River with supposed great views of the city. Arriving at the Building, we were uber disappointed (although not honestly too surprised) to find out that you had to pay mucho dinero to get to the top! Boo! None of our guide books said anything about paying! Since it was a hazy day and 15$ seemed a little steep to ride an elevator 63 floors we decided to stay on firm ground. We did however, try to ride a different elevator (in the office section of the building) but unfortunately there were no views to be had from there.

Next stop was the electronics market where everyone was in awe of the rows upon rows of every different electronic you could think of! Finally, it was time to get back home, so we boarded the KTX for the 2.5 hour journey to Gupo station. For their last night in Korea, we had fried chicken and just enjoyed the company for the last few hours!

Mike got up early the next day to bring some breakfast to the hotel, and get them off in their taxi to the airport. With quick goodbye (thanks to the impatient cab drivers), they were off to the airport for the return flight to Canada with the anticipation that it would be much better than the last. As they headed back home, we headed back into our everyday life here in Korea.

We very much enjoyed having the visitors and playing tour guide to them! We love being able to share our life here with our family and friends from back home.

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