A trip to Seoul that happened a while ago...

So a few weeks ago we went to Seoul with a Korean family that Becca met at dance class.

It was fun, although there were some misadventures with finding them and getting to the right bus/train/subway station etc, but once those were cleared up, we had a pretty good time.

We met up with some extended family of the girls that do dance with Becca (an aunt and a tiny and incredibly cute little cousin), and drove downtown Seoul to go to the National Palace Museum, which is conveniently located right next to ... you guessed it... a palace! YAY!!!!!



By the way, these pictures aren't in chronological order, just "the way I choose to tell the story" order. Deal with it.

Anyway, inside the museum there were all sorts of artifacts and paintings and stuff from the various dynasties of Korea. No, they didn't have different versions of the 1970s soap opera. I mean like "series of kings spanning decades and centuries" type dynasties. We got our pictures taken with the kids and family in front of some murals of various palaces and royal ceremonies.

Observe:






After the museum tour, we drove to meet the uncle responsible for the cute baby cousin. However, on the way, we decided to stop for more pictures in front of some incredible light displays outside of a department store downtown.



After meeting up with the uncle in question, we also go to meet another aunt and a grandmother of the family. The uncle lived for a long time in the US, and actually works for the USDA in Seoul. He speaks a ridiculous number of languages, too. Anyway, for dinner we went to TGI Friday's, which was awesome, cause we haven't had that much in the way of western food (I had a pizzadilla!!). Here's a shot of Becca and the mom of the kids that take dance:



And another with the uncle, aunt and aforementioned cute little cousin:



Anyway, that pretty much brings us to the end of the day. It was a great time and we really enjoyed ourselves.

It was a while ago, and stuff's happened since, so there'll hopefully be another post coming shortly with more pictures of a different trip to Seoul, among other things!

Bye!

Christmas and Family

My family came to visit! It was amazing to have them here after being away for 4 months (I can't believe it's been this long). It was quite a task to get them. They arrived in Korea on Christmas day. It was an eventful day, I mean, of course, Christmas has always been eventful and this by no means was more eventful than, say, the first Christmas, but you know what I mean. Chrtistmas is not really a big deal here in Korea. Thirty percent of the population is Christian but the holiday is quite small in comparison to the two main holidays Chuseok and Solnal. This has the benefit of lessoning the materialistic feel of a Christmas in North America that begins the day after Halloween, but there was a feel that Christmas came without the Chebang that it is entitled to!

Christmas morning we made our way to the car rental shop to pick up the car that we had reserved to pick up my parents, brother and their luggage. Unfortunately upon arrival we were told that a Korean licence was not sufficent to rent a car. Pardon? We're in Korea. For some reason, Koreans can use Korean licences to get cars. Unfortunately, foreigners can only use International Drivers licences to get cars in Korea. We didn't get it, but it's really not all that unusual here for plans to change. We were presented with the option of renting a car without any insurance. We declined as in Korea you get honked at if you stop at a red light at night and the country does not believe in stop signs (amazingly they figure it out though).
And so we arrived at the bus station, took the bus to Incheon, the airport, and waited for their flight. Due to a miscommunication about flights we were sort-of maybe waiting at the wrong gate. Miraculously, my brother stumbled upon us waiting for them and it all got sorted out. Thank goodness!

The rest of the trip went smoothly and we didn't lose them again. Christmas was spectacular and they brought us many much missed items from home - my grandmothers' jam and shortbread cookies along with Christmas presents, and maple and oreo cookies!
My parents came into the school we work at and got to see some of the students who are participating in a penpal program with their school. Bruce came out with us for his first $17 all you can drink night and experienced the neon jungle that is Korea after 9:00pm.
For New Years we went to Seoul and my parents Christmas shopped it up. We were actually able to rent a car with insurance with another company and got them to Daecheon near the ocean. A little too cold for swimming but the beach is renowned for sea shells. There they had exciting cultural and language barrier experiences that are quite frequent. The two elevators in the hotel went only to odd or even floors. Try understanding that in Korean. Pools here have very specific rules and regulations. Who really knows what they are?! The lifeguards just kind of yell sometimes. All in all I think they had a good time. We were a little worried about what kind of food they would enjoy but I think that we've been here long enough to safely navigate towards the galbi bliss as opposed to the octopus (think spicy rubber bands in hot water, and you're close).

Anyway, it was a phenomenal visit. We loved it. We want some more of it. Therefore if anyone is intersted in vacationing in Korea, we would love to have you!

So we've been bad...

Yes, yes, yes. It's been forever since our last update.

The first reason is that we were busy hosting Becca's family. After they left, we've just been lazy. There. I said it.

However, this isn't the (possibly) long-awaited update. This is the promise of a fothcoming update. The visit with Becca's parents and brother was phenomenal. Loads of fun (I think) had by all. New foods were tried, new traffic laws (and their inability to actually affect what happens on the road) were witnessed, and Korean fermented beverages were sampled. Good times had by all (again, I think).

Anyway, a more detailed update coming up. This is just to let people know that we're still alive, and that the visit was awesome.

Oh yeah, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!! (which in Korean I believe is spelled 세헤 복마니 파드세요 - but either way it sounds like "se-he-bokmani-padusayo")