South Korea Sept 28-Oct 4, 2019

South Korea has been a country that I have been curious about for a while. I could have chosen to work there but chose China instead. I also wanted to get out of of China for the 70th anniversary. There are so many restrictions and closers for the 70th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China. They use WON in South Korea. 13,000 won equals 1 dollar. We flew into Incheon airport and it is one of the nicest airports I have seen. Because we flew in after midnight, we stayed in a hotel next to the airport. However, getting the currency converted and finding the hotel wasn't very easy.

DAY 1 Connor and I woke up and wandered around the airport for a while. We noticed all of the Korean men had the same haircut. Connor caught lots of Pokemon. When the girls woke up, we went to breakfast and had waffles, which we hadn't eaten in a very long time. We then went to Seoul. It was a pretty long drive and our taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong location. We had to walk almost 2 miles to our hotel. We called the hotel and they said, "Are you Chinese?" It is very confusing for people when I come from China but am American. We arrived at our hotel at about 3:30pm. We found a really good Pho restaurant to eat at for dinner. We also had to buy new outlet converters. The outlets were not like China or the USA. We then went to the Gangnam festival near our hotel. It was a big outdoor concert with lots of people and different food. We saw the Gangnam statue and walked around the mall for the night.

DAY 2 The next day, we went to the Starfield library, which is a huge library with more than 50,000 books. We enjoyed some huge cakes. We also visited Bongeunsa Temple, which is an ancient buddhist temple constructed in 794. It became the main temple of Korean zen from 1551-1936. We learned the that Christianity is the main religion in South Korea today. We ate a huge fried chicken dinner, which had a sweet and spicy coating called yangnyam. They also had a good beer called Terra. We then saw the moonlight rainbow fountain show on the Han river. The double decker bridge was completed in 1982. Carly and I walked in the Han river a bit. Connor had fun punching a dummy at the arcade. We heard funny inappropriate music. We also saw the Olympic stadium. It was built for the 1986 Asian games. Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, and Lady Gaga all played there.

DAY 3 We ate at a place called Butterfinger pancakes for breakfast. It was very good but was very expensive. They had fancy cheese on their meals. We also saw the Seoul City wall near Dongdaemun, which was built in 1396. It stretches 18.6km and originally had 8 gates. This area had a huge market and shopping mall. After this we went to a food street called Myeong-dong. They had spiral cut potatoes, egg toast, Korean dumplings, and roasted sweet potatoes. We saw a store called BT21, which is a BTS world store. That place was a zoo! After this day, the kids asked for a chill day.

DAY 4 So, the next day we went to Dragon Hill Spa. They had a pool, PC room, theater, food court, and many hot baths. Before going there I ran 10 miles to Banpo park. A man totally pulled his pants down in front of me. I did not expect that to happen in South Korea. The spa was rat at the subway stop and easy to get to. They had a traditional Korean food dinner. It rained all day that day. The kids loved all of the activity and I got a good Thai massage. We hung out in many spas and bathing baths. Carly actually got yelled at by an old Korean lady because she was acting wild on the subway. The lady actually scared Carly, which helped me out a bit. The spa place charged me twice and it was an interesting experience trying to explain to them that I was double charged when my alert was all in Chinese. We went out to chicken again and they people actually remembered us. We loved that chicken!

DAY 5 On our last day, we ate pho for breakfast, bought some English books at a bookstore, and saw, "The Joker" at the theater. We also had some excellent Japanese food.

DAY 6 I would say that my favorite part of Korea is the uneven old looking streets. Everything is stacked high and very old fashioned looking. There are more coffee shops than I have ever seen. The Koreans meet for coffee and talk for hours. Everyone seems very educated and well mannered. There are designated smoking areas and people can't just smoke anywhere. They are quiet unless you get them into a bar atmosphere. We completed some fun art projects at the Incheon Airport, which we all loved, before heading home.