Seoul, South Korea

We were blessed to have great hosts in Seoul. We visited with Joe, one of Evan's friends from Emory, and his girlfriend, Jooyoung. They are two of the kindest people...from Jooyoung waiting for us at the bus stop on our arrival, researching a day tour of Seoul, great meals, letting us crash at his place and even giving up the bed for us! Thanks Joe and Jooyoung!

On our first day, Jooyoung took us to Joe's work neighborhood to check out the National Assembly, the river and the tail end of the cherry blossoms. After Joe finished work they quickly immersed us in Korean culture...a Korean BBQ dinner. You cook the meat yourself (we had both pork and beef) and wrap it in lettuce with other toppings. It was delicious! Here's Joe and Jooyoung enjoying their meal...



After dinner, Jooyoung headed home and Joe had something special up his sleeve. We walked around his neighborhood which is full of fun bars, restaurants and boutiques. He pointed to a bar at the top of a building and suggested that we check it out. It was called Dog Cafe Bau Haus and we could see dogs' noses pressed against the windows. The dogs are being boarded either daily or long term, and they even have a card with many of the dogs' pictures and names so you can address them by name. The dogs seemed quite well behaved until we purchased some treats for them. They were climbing all over the tables and over us to get the treats. They did know how to sit and shake to get their treats.







We were zonked after almost 2 hours in the Bau Haus, and headed home to rest for a busy following day. Joe and Jooyoung found a city bus tour where we could get on and off as we pleased, so we hit that the next morning. Our first stop was Deoksugung Palace, a former royal palace and residence for various emperors over the years. One thing that was really neat about this place, as well as all of the temples and palaces in Seoul was the proximity of the old to new and how we were standing in the middle of the city, but in a serene atmosphere. This fact is not lost on the many people of all ages who we saw strolling the grounds at all hours of the day.

This is the main hall of the palace, Junghwajeon, where Emperor Gojong conducted state affairs.



All of the halls were very intricately detailed and we were really impressed by their use of color.



The next stop on the tour was Itaweon, an area that caters to foreigners, especially military personnel stationed in Seoul. Deepa had shown us a couple jerseys he picked up when visiting Joe a few months back, so we knew (yes, we, even Michelle) that we had to check it out. We managed to score Manning and Addai jerseys. The best part about all of it was they were only $20 a pop. They do great knock off work in all of Asia, but this was the first time we had seen NFL goods, and perfect copies of Mitchell and Ness as well as Reebok official equipment, gotta love it.

We stopped by the Namsongol Traditional Village on the way to Namsan park, but didn't stay long as we didn't have a guide and that made it difficult to appreciate a lot of what was there. Namsan Park is the home of Seoul Tower and some beautiful views of the entire city and surrounds. Even though we were past peak cherry blossom time at ground level, up on the hill they were still in full bloom.



It's a tradition to bring a padlock to the top and hook it to the fence, unfortuantely we didn't know this until we arrived, so all we could do was admire.



The final stop on the tour was Insa Dong, a really cool shopping and dining street that was great for a stroll. We grabbed a bite to eat here and killed some time before meeting our hosts for an evening of soccer at the World Cup stadium to see FC Seoul take on Incheon. This stadium is world class, and definitely one of the nicest used in the 2002 World Cup. The teams battled to a scoreless draw, but we still had a blast!



Another morning of sleeping in and then off to see the sights. The first palace we tried to visit was 5x the normal price this day because you can't take a guide, go figure, so we passed and chose to visit the Gyeongbokgung Palace instead. This was a former imperial palace, originally built in the late 14th century, but destroyed during Japanese invasions in the 16th century. This was the place where Sejong the Great held court in the 15th century and also invented the Hangul language of Korea so that (according to Joe) the common people could learn to read and write much easier than the complex Chinese script.

We loved the throne room and all of the vibrant colors over every square inch of the building.





Also, we were intrigued by the adornments on the corners of each roof.



With perfect weather and flowers in full bloom we enjoyed all of the gardens tucked into every corner of the palace.





After visiting the palace, we met up with Jooyoung to check out some art galleries. Then we had dinner with Jooyoung, her sister and Joe at another great Korean restaurant where we tried octopus. We walked around some more at Insa-Dong where they don't allow signage in any language other than Korean. So, here's the Starbucks...



We also stopped at a street vendor who makes sweet treats that were famous as a royal dessert...



Our last day in Seoul was spent with Michelle relaxing and while the boys went shopping at Itaewon again and Longsan, a place to get great fake dvds. Joe found out that he got into law school, so we went out to celebrate with another great Korean BBQ meal. We had some drinks at a bar before saying goodbye and heading to the Hilton for a great night's sleep. Joe's dad used some of his points to get us a free room at the Hilton, thanks Dr. Jueng! The next morning we took off for Japan!