The Kendrick's Adventures!: 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!

We signed up for the USO tour of the DMZ & JSA before planning our trip to Seoul to make sure we would be able to do this during our trip - we were both dying to do this tour. We woke up early on Saturday morning during our weekend in Seoul to check it out.

We were unbelievably excited - there is something so intriguing about going to a place like this. Our tour bus drove us out to Camp Bonifas (the military base just outside of the JSA) and our tour began. The history of the North/South Korean tension was really interesting and they made us sign a waiver that we were entering an area where our safety was not guaranteed - it said that by going on the tour, we were putting ourselves in a potentially fatal situation - talk about intimidating!

Our guides took us to the JSA (also called Panmunjon) - there are several buildings where the North & South Koreans meet for peace talks. First, we looked out on the North Korean side while standing on the steps of the South Korean building. There was one Korean guard with his binoculars checking us out. Later on, several other North Koreans came out and it looked like they were taking pictures of themselves with us in the background. It was a very interesting sight, watching the South Koreans stand in martial art ready position ("ROK ready") at all times in case anything were to happen. Another interesting aspect was that we could take as many pictures of North Korea as we wanted but we were not allowed to turn around and take pictures of South Korea - I didn't expect that.

This was the view of the North Korean soldier for most of our stay - he was constantly looking at our group through those binoculars...

The line and different in ground color is where North & South Korea split...the darker rocks are the South Korean side and the sand is the North Korean side

Our US military officer guide & the 3 ROK (Republic of Korea) guards always on the lookout

the North Korean soliders came out to take pictures with us in the background

After that, we went into the building that is split down the middle between North & South Korea. At this point, we were able to step foot in North Korea. The whole event was a little surreal - it was wild to be standing in the middle of a place that is so tense and still at war. It was rainy for the whole visit which added to the sadness of the location - there are many Koreans whose families are split between the North & the South and they are forbidden from seeing each other again.

This table bisects Korea (North & South)

If you've heard the story about the South Korean guard locking a door & North Koreans opening the door to drag him out - this is that door....the door to the left is a separate room where one soldier now stands and holds the belt buckle of the soldier who actually locks the door to make sure he can be pulled back in quickly if they try that tactic again

Here we are in North Korean being protected by one of the South Korean guards!

They took us to several other spots that were of significance where we got a few more views of North Korea. One of the towns has a huge flag pole with the North Korean flag - they have been building it bigger and taller to make sure that they are always "better" than South Korea. I guess everyone needs a goal and the highest/tallest flagpole is theirs. One of the saddest places was called the "Bridge of No Return" where POWs from the North and the South were allowed to pick which side they wanted to go and live on (the North or the South)...once they crossed the bridge one way or another, they were never allowed back to the other place. I can imagine that would be a hard decision for many people because they likely had family on both sides. Another one of the stories they told us was about an attack by the North Koreans where the South Koreans had gone to cut down a tree so that they could better see one of the North Korean checkpoints and while they were cutting it down, the North Koreans attacked them and killed them with their own axes. The next time they needed to cut down a tree, the South Koreans called it "Operation Paul Bunyon" where they brought in many troops and they had helicopters/planes flying around while they finished the operation - this time all those involved came home safely. (Wikipedia has more if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident)

The large flag pole in North Korea

Another view of North Korea - it's hazy because of the rain but that's okay

The next stop was the "Third Tunnel" - this was a tunnel that the North Koreans had built to infiltrate Seoul - our guide told us that they could get 10,000 North Korean troops through there an hour. It was a long walk down and it was certainly a long tunnel which is now permanently monitored and barricaded to make sure no one can get through from the North. While we were there, we picked up some North Korean liquor - I do not think we will ever be brave enough to drink it but I think it will be pretty cool up on our liquor cabinet.

Finally, we went to a train station that used to take people from South Korea to North Korea. It was a somber place, primarily because you realize just how isolated South Korea is from the rest of the world because of this. If they could travel through North Korea, they could connect to the train systems through China and Russia into Europe. They would have access to a lot more of the world.