First Days in Seoul (1)

안녕하세요!

I finally took the time to convert, edit, and upload my pictures from Korea! This is the first post of four that will cover the two weeks I was there. I'll add descriptions and share stories of the cool things we saw. Feel free to read them or just look at the pictures :)

Day 1

 

After spring semester ended at BYUH, I flew from Hawaii to Korea. I landed in the Incheon airport after a nine hour fight which, thankfully, I mostly slept through. My friends Saeyeon and Kristen met me there and welcomed me with the sign you see above :) I quickly changed my US dollars to Korean won and then we climbed on the bus that would take us to Saeyeon's house in Seoul. I loved looking out the window and taking in everything.

    

In the evening we met up with one of our friends from BYU-Hawaii, BK! We ate dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant and it was delicious! At these places they bring you meat and several side dishes that you cook on the grill in the table. My favorite dishes are bulgogi and samgyeop-sal (pork belly). After we ate we went out for dessert and got bingsu! If you read my last post you will know how much I love it!

This is an after picture. We ate it too quickly!

Day 2

The next day we went on a family trip with Saeyeon's parents! Her dad drove us out of the city so that we could visit the burial ground of King Sejong in Yeoju. Besides being on the 10,000 won bill, King Sejong is known for many reasons. Before his rule (1397-1450), the people of Korea used Chinese for most of their writing. He wanted Koreans from all classes to be able to read and write so he introduced the phonetic language of hangul to the people, which is still used today! He is also credited with many scientific inventions that were made during his reign. 

This is about $10 in US dollars

King Sejong himself!

Mother and daughter! The hill behind them is where King Sejong is buried

We made a stop on the way back for ice cream!

 

In the evening we walked around Dongdaemun. We explored the mall and found an exhibit all about Pixar! Before we headed home we made one last stop. At night they have a beautiful display of flowers that light up in the middle of the city! It was so pretty! (there were several couples taking pictures here as you can imagine haha) 

Day 3 

  

In the morning the three of us went to Nowon and got our nails done! The girls who did them were very sweet and they even wanted to take a picture of us! When we finished it was lunch time so we went to a little underground restaurant. We had ramen (we cooked it in the little pot) and pizza! We also had tteokbokki (spicy rice cake), which is one of my favorite Korean foods. However, this dish is either super spicy or extremely spicy haha there isn't really a mild option. Saeyeon tired to tell me that this one wasn't spicy but my mouth was on fire! That's where the pizza comes in. It turns out the cheese on the pizza cools your mouth down so I would take a bite of tteokbokki and then a bite of pizza. By doing that I was able to finish the meal :) 

A cute sign outside of the new city hall

     

Across the street from City Hall is Deoksugung Palace. It is free for citizens but for foreigners it is 1,000 won. Don't worry, that may sound like a lot, but in reality it's about $1 ;) The architecture was beautiful! This is where the royal family lived during the Joseon dynasty. 

  

Afterwards we sat down to take a break at Dunkin Donuts! 

 

 

It was fun to see American brands in Korea! I liked when they used hangul on their signs :)

   

Our friend King Sejong again! 

  

We then went on a walk up a giant hill! It was quite the trek but it was worth it! At the top we visited Hanok Village. These are a set of houses that were built in the traditional style. Some people still live there so they had signs to remind us to be quiet as we walked around. On the way home, we found Mickey and Minnie dressed in traditional Hanbok! So cute!

Day 4 

On Thursday we spent our time in Hongdae. First thing in the morning, I went and got my hair cut! We went to the cutest little hair salon called Chop. While I was waiting for my appointment they gave me some lemonade and cookies and they were delicious! I'd go back just for the drink!

    

 

The after result! My stylist added layers and trimmed my bangs. Earlier in the week she had cut Saeyeon's hair and she was kind enough to curl her hair for her when I was done :) 

 

 

We ate lunch at the Cafe Ann House. It is the cutest restaurant! They have private rooms that you can sit in and we were lucky enough to get one! This was the only time I had alfredo pasta in Korea, but it was so yummy!   

      

In Korea one of the most popular apps for chatting is Kakao Talk. They have stores all over that sell merchandise for the different characters associated with the app. The most popular is Ryan, who I always though was a bear, but I learned he is actually a lion without a mane! Saeyeon's favorite character is the Peach :)

 

This was taken at Ehwa University which is one of the many women's universities in Seoul. 

That night we had a mini BYU-Hawaii reunion with some of our friends! It was so fun to see some familiar faces in Korea! Three of us were from America, one from Hungry, and two from Korea :) We went out to dinner for fried chicken and it was SO good!

The day after this we took the train to Busan so I will cover those adventures in another post :)

Thanks for reading! 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다! 

♥ TTFN, KARISSA