Foreigners, the largest church in the world, and a bakery

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It's already been a month since this trip but I want to keep up with my blogging and it was too good of a weekend to skip....so here it is!

Jake and I finally made it back to Seoul for the first time since our training. We quickly realized that we saw ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during training. We saw our hotel, and we saw the training center and that is it.

We got up early on a Saturday and took a taxi to the bus station and then got on a rather fancy bus to Seoul. The trip can be anywhere from one hour to two. Usually about 1 and half but later when we rode it back at night...the bus driver was in a hurry....

We got to the bus station in Seoul and really had no plans so we started wandering around in the subway. Instantly, we were like: wow, foreigners. everywhere. We decided we needed to see Itaewon because it's where you can find American stores and restaurants. It's also home to a US military base. And while in Itaewon, you will see about 5 foreigners for every 1 Korean. It is crazy! Jake was like, "this sucks..." ha ha We had no idea you could find so many Americans, or foreigners, and for whatever reason we were less than excited about it. We went to Starbucks and had trouble imagining we weren't sitting in a Starbucks in Seattle. It was interesting though because everyone working could speak English. In Cheongju, that does not happen! The more time we spend in Seoul the more we realize that we live in the COUNTRY. I'm starting to find more and more similarities between Orting and Cheongju... ha ha

So besides three Nike stores and zero shoes in Jake's size, and extremely overpriced mexican food that wasn't even that great, Itaewon wasn't too exciting and I'm not sure we'll even go back. BUT!!! We walked towards the end of the main area and kept walking...and Jake's like uhmmm Bethany where are we going? I'm like I don't know, let's just keep walking. I get feelings of which way I should go...sometimes they are OFF but this day it turned out well 😊 We keep walking, towards seemingly nothing...and find this huge black, shiny building that looks pretty fancy. And we're like what the heck is that? Let's go look! Most people walking in were dressed fairly nicely but as we got closer, I saw a cafe type thing inside....so I was like surely it's okay for us to go in there. We go in and quickly discover that this entire place is the fanciest, nicest, yummy looking bakery you could ever imagine! It was CRAZY! The first thing we saw was a spinning gelato wheel....and then we got to the bakery section which was amazing...and then we got to the chocolate section where I was asked to stop taking pictures. Then we went to the second floor, which was a restaurant and coffee shop. This place was unbelievable. Jake and I were trying to figure out how a bakery could afford a million dollar building. I wish I had better pictures!!! Anyway, we had some of the soft caramel and chocolate gelato and it was heavenly.

Then we went to Hongdae, which is a pretty popular area and home to a university. We went to another coffee shop and sat on the roof and people watched and let our legs relax a bit. I really liked this area, it was packed with people, and just cute, I guess. There was lots of shopping and I guess there is a huge night life scene. We went to Hongdae because we were meeting up with friends from training. About 10 of us met up and we went to True to Texas, ha ha, and got some fried food and talked about life with Chung Dahm. Everyone seems to have much more serious schools than us. They have to do a lot more, meetings, essays, a lot of outside work. Which we have never had to do at all, and I can't imagine happening. But most of them also had Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day off, which of course, we did not. It's all determined by the school owner and I think ours is looking for money.

One of our friends we met up with said we could stay at his place so we headed out of town for about an hour before we made it there. You can drive somewhere for over an hour and still be in Seoul, it is crazy. He took us to an Irish Pub by his house. Irish Pub's are my favorite anywhere! That's where we liked to hang out in South Africa too. So laid back...we played darts and ate and met some nice foreigners, which also hasn't really happened in Cheongju. I think foreigners are more accepting of foreigners in Seoul...because they see them so often. In Cheongju, it's more like "hi, i've been here longer than you...you suck." ha ha...not quite but you get it.

So that was fun and then we went to bed planning on waking up around 9. It was 10:40 when Oscar was like, "oh crap guys...sorry, I just woke up!" ha ha which was fine because we were exhausted. First stop was Dunkin and then we got on the subway and headed towards Yeouido. Yeouido is an island on the Han River in Seoul. All I knew about it was that it housed the largest church in the entire world. Yeouido Full Gospel Church. I had wanted to visit the church but I had no idea what time services were, WHERE it was, and we were definitely not dressed appropriately. However, we happened to find the church...and while we were outside taking pictures, we decided to peak inside. Then one of 500 men dressed in suits and matching ties looked at us, pointed to his ears and said "englishe, englishe..." We were like okay, and we followed him. The service was about half way through...the pastor was speaking...and we walked past about 1,000 people to get to the seats he took us to. We sat in front of a big flat screen tv and watched the pastor and listened via headphones that translated various languages. It was all pretty interesting. We were sweaty and gross...carrying our back packs that we had all of our overnight stuff in, and each had a camera and a video recorder in hand. Ha ha...quite the sight. Anyway, the church was interesting...definitely a Mega church...definitely would make Jerry proud. It was the largest church building I have ever seen. People went on and on as far as the eye could see. I used the women's restroom and it was like a maze full of doors and stalls. Unbelievably huge.

Anyway, Yeouido was amazing! The park along the water goes on forever. There is a bike trial, a walking trail, water falls, water fountains, water play parks, it was just crazy! It was also perfect weather...We really like Yeouido and definitely hope to make it back.

After that it was off to the City Hall. When we came out of city hall station we walked right into the changing of the guard which happens outside of one of the main temple buildings. It was interesting but we didn't stick around for too long. We went across to city hall where they are doing some incredible futuristic looking construction. Also out front of City Hall was a big event that was raising money for shoes for children in South Africa. That was pretty interesting.

We then headed to Cheonggyecheon, which is a fabulous stream that goes through about 6 kilometers of downtown Seoul. It was probably my favorite part. It's a beautiful stream and it had lanterns decorating the sidewalks and people everywhere. Then we came across about a million people....a big sign said "Lotus Lantern Festival" and we quickly found about 500 different booths full of people. There was art, there were things for sale, there was food....etc, but most of all...there were FOREIGNERS. Like, I couldn't even imagine this many foreign people living in Korea...it was CRAZY! Every person who passed you was a foreigner...and then maybe like 1 Korean would walk by. It was definitely strange. This part was cool though because we got to go in a big temple and walk around...and we saw quite a few really cool lantern displays.

After all of this we headed to Gyeongbuk Palace, which is one of the major things to do in Seoul for tourists. It was huge, like unbelieveably huge and it takes HOURS to walk through. It is beautiful though. It sits right underneath a group of mountins and is filled with ponds and lakes and beautiful trees and flowers. By this point our feet were killing us but we meandered around the palace, took pictures, and then took off to our next destination. Ha ha are you tired of reading yet? I'm gettind tired of writing all this! ha ha

Next, we met up with a few of our friends from training, at a place I cannot remember, and walked to the parade. We weren't even planning on going but we found out that the big Lotus Lantern Festival parade was going on that night so we decided to check it out. The parade was at least 3 hours long....it was crazy! They had huge floats, dragons that spit fire, and many other interesting things. Our feet were of course, killing us, so after standing for about an hour we went upstairs in McDonalds and watched the parade from there. I don't know why we didn't think of it before!

After McDonalds...we had to call our boss who had asked Jake to meet up with him if we came to Seoul. He lives in Seoul with his family but would stay the week in Cheongju. We called him and he and his wife and daughter and a friend came and met us and then took us to have chicken and beer. We almost felt rude declining the beer but I think it was okay and we had cider instead. We had a great time with his family...and on the way back the daughter said, "bethany?" and I was like yes.... and she said, "do you know the do re mi song?" She has the voice of a mouse so I wasn't sure what she said...and then she sang to me, walking down the street, the entire do a deer, a female deer song! Ha ha it was so cute! She sat quietly all night and besides telling me I was pretty, the song is about all that came out of her mouth. It was sweet!

The sad news about this is that last week...our boss (director) quit! He and the owner were not getting along for these reasons: he thinks people come first. She thinks business comes first. Jake and I were sad to see him go. He is the 2nd boss since we've been here (2 months) that has quit. Not a good streak. But he loved Jake and has since emailed him and invited him to bike with him in Seoul, along the Han River and barbecue! So hopefully we'll do that sometime...

After dinner with him and his family...we were stressing about catching the last bus back to Cheongju. It was 10:30 and we didn't want to be rude by leaving them but we still had to take the subway all the way to the bus station, buy a bus ticket, and ride back to cheongju for an hour. Luckily, they realized we needed to go and we booked it to the bus station. I'm not sure if it was THE last bus, but it was one of the last ones and we were relieved to make it on, because we had no idea where we would stay the night in Seoul. We were tired, greasy, one of my feet was black from dirt, the other foot was covered in a sock because my blister hurt so bad, but we had so much fun! I waited 2 days to take all the pictures off of my cameras and then BAM, the night I did...they were stolen. I'm just glad I have my pictures from the weekend 😊

For more pictures and less story...check out facebook 😊

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Photos

Where to?
Subway map of Seoul

Starbucks Treat
Expensive but yummy

Bakery
The outside of the bakery

Bakery
Inside

Bakery
Chocolate

Yeouido Park
Awesome

Han River
from the park

Church
Me out front

Largest church in the world
...or largest cross in the world?

Water park
so fun

Cheonggyecheon Stream
My favorite place!

Comments

[Jeanne Curtis]

Thanks for the update and pictures!! I love hearing about your travels and experiences!! Give Jake a hug for me!! Love you!! Jeanne

[Christine]

I want to know more about your Church.