Beijing! (Part 1: Forbidden City & Other Fun!)

When we first learned that we would be moving to Korea, my parents decided that they would meet us in China - we thought that was a great idea because it's a short trip for us (2 hour plane ride) and we would get the chance to have some once in a lifetime adventures together! The weekend after July 4th was the weekend that we chose to meet them. We flew into China and could immediately tell that this was very different from where we live in Korea. It is such a big city and there are SO many people everywhere!

Luckily when we were on the plane, we had made a friend who helped point us in the right direction to our hotel. He took us most of the way there and then we had to go our separate ways...a taxi cab driver immediately came up to us shouting Chinese numbers "I take you to your hotel: 200 Yuan!" and so Ryan did some negotiating and got us a pretty low price, so we hopped in. This guy was driving like a mad man...cutting people off and then he pulled up at an alley and told us that is where our hotel was...we were a little skeptical, but we got out and started walking down the alley...we knew it was part of the hutongs which are alleyways where the old courtyards used to be. Luckily we passed some tourists on the way who assured us that we were going the right way. The hotel was really neat because it was once the home of an Chinese scholar/dignitary - it was almost like being in a museum. They had pictures of the previous owner around and several courtyards when you could sit and relax...it was very relaxing, particularly being in the middle of Beijing in one of the hutongs. (Hotel Website)

The antique Chinese bed in our Wedding Suite at the hotel 

This is the courtyard in our hotel...it was a lot of fun to sit out here and read in the mornings and then we would all play cards in the evenings...it was great! 

Ryan and I walked around for a little bit, grabbed some food and found our way to Tiananmen Square - it was closed off for a military march to go and get the Chinese flag and take it down for the evening. It was particularly crowded because Raul Castro was in town and was participating in several events around that area - they even put up the Cuban flag for him in the square.

Tiananmen Entrance to the Forbidden Palace at night

The soldiers walked over to take down the Chinese flag...

 The next morning, my parents got to the hotel and it was so wonderful to see them! They had already had some adventures in China because they had spent the past few days in X'ian seeing the Terra Cotta warriors so they filled us in what a great time they had in China so far. Both my dad and I have always wanted to see the Forbidden City so we decided to head there first as it wasn't too far from our hotel. We hopped on the subway and headed that way. It turns out we were not the only ones that had this bright idea...it was incredibly crowded with lots and lots of people! We got tickets and went inside! It is such an impressive place and much bigger than I ever imagined! We ended up walking around the Forbidden City for 5 hours! It was awesome! Such a great day! 

My mom, dad & I inside the Forbidden Palace

Male Lion at the entrance of one of the palace steps...

One of the thrones in the Palace

Wall of the Nine Dragons

One of the 9 Dragons on one of the walls

Momma Lion - notice the little cub under her foot; they say the female lion is always on the right side because women are always right! :) 

One thing that happened continuously during our time in China is that people would do 1 of 2 things: they would either try and take a picture with us in the background or come up to us and ask if we could take a picture with them. I turned around while viewing some of the Imperial Palace treasures to see this: Ryan was asked to take a picture with this girl. It was too funny!

Here's another where this woman had asked me to take a picture with her son. You'll see more of these throughout the China posts...it was just too funny! 

My family shares my love of dumplings, so my mom had already researched some of the best places to go. It turned out there was one near our hotel so we went there for dinner on our first night. It wasn't particularly fancy and we were the only foreigners who came into the restaurant, but they had one English menu that they let us look at and we picked out some dumplings. They came out piping hot and  they were one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. Our two favorites were lamp & cilantro and then pork and mushroom. I don't know if I will ever be able to eat dumplings anywhere else again because these were so incredible!

They don't look fancy but they were divine! 

So happy to have my dumplings! After a long day of sightseeing, they were well deserved! :) 

The next day, my mom and I had a cooking class scheduled for the afternoon so we decided to do some morning activities all together and then my mom and I would go to the cooking class and my dad and Ryan would go to the military museum. Our hotel was great because it was very central to a lot of the different places that we wanted to see - we looked at the map and got on the subway for a short ride and go out at the Yonghe Temple (also called theLama Temple)- it's a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is said to be one of the most important monstaries. We knew we were going the right direction because there were people selling incense on the street. They were quite large bundles of incense and we didn't understand why until we got into the temple - it's huge! It was really interesting to walk through - I had never seen people making offerings to Buddha before - at each Buddha, they had to leave 3 sticks of incense as an offering and there were also several people who were lighting it and saying prayers in front of the various temples. 

First building in the Temple

Buddha Statue

Buddhists with incense as an offering 

Bright Blue statue - notice the crown of skulls

Another Buddha statue

Dad & I in front of the Temple

They also had the largest Buddha carved out of a single tree  (26m) - it was even in the Guinness Book of World Records! It was a great experience to see how important the Buddhists temples are to people.

26m Buddha carved from a single tree! It's even in the Guinness Book of World Records!

Afterwards, we walked over to the Confucius temple across the road. This was much quieter than the Buddhist temple but it was fun to walk around. We watched the show that they had for a little while and they we walked through the stone tablets. The atmosphere of each of the temples was very different but we enjoyed seeing both.

Ryan & I with Confucius :)

The Temple

Stone Scroll

Dance Performance 

Confucius Scholar statues

Ryan and my dad headed to the Military Museum...

...while my mom and I went to a Chinese market tour and cooking class. It was awesome! The market tour was great because they walked us around and showed us some of the spices and vegetables that we likely hadn't seen before and the best way to use them in your cooking.

Spices at the Market! 

Some of the fresh veggies

Afterwards, we went to the cooking class and we learned how to make 3 dim sum dishes - a chicken/noodle dish, chicken & sticky rice in Lotus leaves, and then the sticky rice balls with sesame seeds on the outside and red bean paste in the middle. It was really fun to make them ourselves and they were absolutely delicious!

Sticky rice balls with red bean paste in the middle - SO DELICIOUS! 

Since we had already had quite a bit of dinner in the cooking class, we weren't super hungry, so we decided to check out the night market. They had some skewers of meat and then also all kinds of crazy treats such as scorpions, star fish, squid, etc. My dad, Ryan, and I tried scorpions. It actually didn't taste that bad...basically like popcorn because they fry it so much, haha.

Entrance to the Night Market

Look closely - there are starfish, snakes, lizards, grubs, scorpions, centipedes and seahorses

Scorpions - we bought a skewer of them! There were 3 so...

Ryan was the brave one who took the first scorpion! 

I snagged the second...Yummm!! 

And Dad finished off the last one! 

It was quite the adventure and a very unique experience! It was a great few days so far in China and there was still more great memories to be made! Check out Part 2 to hear about our trip to the Summer Palace & Great Wall! (I will upload it once I finish writing it - soon!) :)

Weekend in Seoul

We spent the past weekend in Seoul and had such a great time!

We took Friday off work and headed to the bus station in the morning for our four hour bus ride. We got to the station 10 minutes before the bus left, grabbed tickets, and jumped on the bus. The seats were big and reclined a fair ways so it was much more  comfortable than I had always imagined bus rides in Asia. We certainly enjoyed taking a nice long nap. When we woke up, we were driving through the middle of Korea and it was really beautiful! It was very green and there were mountains and fields of rice on both sides.

Ryan & I on the bus to Seoul

Scenery during the bus ride

We got to Seoul in the early afternoon and ventured into the subway to find our way to our hotel. Both Ryan and I have always loved taking public transportation - we'd love to live in a city where we could take the metro to work everyday. We finally made it and we dropped our stuff out and headed out into town - our first stop was to grab some lunch. We found a little dumpling stand and had some of those - they were excellent. A little known fact about me is that dumplings are one of my culinary weaknesses so our trip was already off to a good start after we got some of those! :)

Dumplings - our options were kimchi or pork...we went with pork ;) 

The weather was a little rainy but we didn't want to let that stop us, so we caught a cab and headed to one of the 5 palaces that are within Seoul. Our guidebook had said if you only have time to see one, make sure it is this one: Changdeokgung. We walked around the palace - we really like the architecture and how colorful everything is!

There is a "secret garden" within this palace and we wanted to check that out as well - you had to be on a tour to be able to go into this area and the English tour had already finished, so we signed up for the Korean tour anyway - we hung out with the group and looked around. It was great! So much of the buildings were for reading and relaxation and it was surprisingly peaceful for being in the middle of one of the world's largest cities.

This building is a two story building for reading - the first story is a library and the second story is reserved for quiet reading...I think my Aunt Elly & Aunt Cathy would love this place so this picture is dedicated to them. :) 

Stone inscription from one of the Kings about the importance of authority

750 Year Old Juniper Tree - they believe it is the oldest in the palace

After this tour, we walked around the Namdaemun market that was near our hotel - it was huge - it spanned for blocks with people out selling everything you can imagine from socks to purses to pineapple on a stick. There were even stores underground!

Our friends had told us to check out the International area of Seoul which is called Itaewon (eee-tay-wahn). They recommended a Mexican restaurant which was good - margaritas and fajitas were just what we needed. It's amazing how much you miss the small things from back home...like sour cream and restaurants who serve margaritas! They also recommended that we check out the area behind the Hamilton hotel because there are lots of fun little restaurants and bars. We did just that and it was such a lively place - so many people out and about and lots of different places to go. We grabbed a few beers in several of the bars and then headed back home because it started pouring down with rain!

Ryan and I enjoying margaritas! 

I couldn't help taking a picture of this - on the end of this guy's truck was a rotisserie with chickens roasting and people would stop by and pick one up for dinner...

Look how excited he is for a big Paulener beer! :)

The next day, we woke up early and headed to the USO for our DMZ/JSA tour (see the post here: DMZ/JSA Blog Post). Once we were back from the tour, we headed to the Seoul tower. To get to the top, you take an outdoor elevator up to the cable car, the cable car up to the base of the tower, and then an indoor elevator to get to the top of the tower. Once at the top, it was very obvious just how large Seoul is - it stretches for miles and miles. They had markers all over for how far different cities are from where we were standing. One thing that I thought was crazy was that we are twice as far from home in the US as we are from the North Pole. I never thought I would say that!

This is the cable car up to the base of the tower

Picture at the base of the Seoul Tower

View of the city - it really is a huge city! 

We are more than 10,000 miles from the US...

...but only 5,000 miles from the North Pole! 

Afterwards, we walked around one of the other areas of Seoul called "Myeongdong" which was bustling - there were tons of people walking around the shops. We really enjoyed all of the energy and it was fun to look around the shops.

We started to get hungry and being typical Americans, we started to crave pizza. We looked around for a bit and couldn't find any Western restaurants and then we turned a corner and there was an Italian restaurant! We were happy to have the opportunity to satisfy our craving (that does not happen nearly as often in our current hometown of Okpo) and we ordered some pizza & lasagna - it was surprisingly delicious! 

Afterwards, we grabbed a cab back over to the Itaewon area of town to enjoy a beer and people watch a bit. This was great because there is such a wide range of people walking around - there were many expats from all of the world and also quite a few Koreans - there were all different ages, too - it was really fun to see such a vibrant group of people enjoying themselves!

Our last day, we slept in a little bit and then headed out for some Dunkin Donuts (we like getting reminders of home sometimes) and as we were getting our coffee, we realized we were standing next to the side entrance to one of the other palaces. There was a guard standing outside and I remebered that they have a Changing of the Guard ceremony several times a day. We decided to hang out and watch it. It turned out to be a good find...certainly unique.

Notice the Dunkin Donuts in the background, haha

We walked around the city a little more and then decided to grab some more dumplings (they really are my weakness) and then find our way to the bus station to head home.

Right before we went in the train station, I decided to try on a pair of shoes at one of the stands - they were everywhere and I wanted to see if I could get some. I tried on the biggest size and it was not nearly big enough...so, moral of the story is that American feet may or may not be too big for Korean shoes that are sold in the markets. Oh well...it was worth a shot!

We really can't wait to check out Seoul again - we had such a great time and it was a wonderful city!