We've got SEOUL

We all have one more stamp in our passports - South Korea. This proved to be one of the more challenging trips we've taken, even though its only a 90 minute flight from Shanghai. Now that Angela is a bit more mobile, she really doesn't want to be stuck in the stroller when we are out. She also has a very hard time sleeping when she isn't in her own bed so we had some rough nights in the hotel room.

Rich worked the first three days that we were in Seoul so Angela and I were on our own to explore. Exploring a new city alone with a 1 year old proved to be too intimidating for me so we stuck close to the hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was connected to a massive shopping center so there was plenty of browsing to do. There was an aquarium in the shopping center which provided enough entertainment for an afternoon. Angela loved seeing all of the fish - and would point and get excited whenever she saw bright colored ones. She actually has the same reaction when she sees the fish in the tanks at our local supermarket.

On Saturday we did some real sightseeing since Rich was with us and this was our only day to explore the city. The day started with a trip to Dunkin' Donuts (there were a surprisingly large number of these in Seoul) followed by a visit to the Bongeunsa temple which was very close to our hotel. The temple was quite busy with people coming and going to pray but was also very open to visitors just looking to tour the grounds. The buildings were all incredibly carved and painted and there was a giant Buddha statue tucked away in one corner of the grounds. I took a video of one of the areas so that you can hear the music that was playing the entire time we walked around. When you watch the video below, be prepared for a special ending.



After the temple we headed to the central part of the city to do some more sightseeing. Of course, at this point the sky had turned black, the wind was howling and it was starting to rain, but we didn't let that deter us. We made our way to the National Museum by taxi and spent about an hour walking around the museum. From there we purchased tickets on a city tour bus that stopped at various landmarks around Seoul. We made it to the War Memorial which turned out to be a giant museum full of information about many wars (we were expecting it to be just the Korean War). We took some time to walk through the section about the Korean War and then made our way back onto our bus. At this point Angela decided to sleep so we chose to stay on the bus for about an hour as it moved through the city. It was getting late enough in the day that we probably could only fit in one or two more stops and we wanted to check out some of the markets that were towards the end of the bus tour. We got off at Insadong which is a very artsy market. We walked around here for a bit but by this time it was pretty cold so we ended up stopping for a quick snack and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel.

At the COEX Aquarium

Bongeunsa Temple
the little purple dot towards the bottom left is Ang & I - this statue was huge!


Courtyard full of lanterns


Meg & Ang exploring the Machu Pichu Exhibit at the National Museum


Checking out the grounds of the War Memorial

DUNKIN' DONUTS!!


and, it seems we cannot escape Haibao. This is the mascot for the 2010 World Expo which is being held in Shanghai this year. There are Haibao statues and pictures all over the place in China, and we even managed to find a few of them in Seoul!