Okay, here's my long-awaited Korea post! I've been back for a week now, but it's been so busy that I haven't had time to blog! Bethany and I hopped on a KAL flight from Okayama airport to Seoul. We almost didn't leave Japan, because we'd stupidly exceeded the 100mL liquid limit; we'd bought juiceboxes, which security kindly let us suck back at the checkpoint. Another funny was the couple behind Bethany getting their passports checked - they'd expired in 1995!! How do you not know?!
Anyway, we landed in Seoul, dumped our stuff into a locker (which we also had trouble because we couldn't understand why the machine was rejecting our 1000w bills - turns out they were too new). Rain was forecast, so we decided to hit up the palace before the rain soaked us. We found our way there and paid the whopping 1000w admission. The castle was lovely, and much more colourful than any we'd seen in Japan. Here I am with a statue of King Sejong. Do I look much like him?
We'd seen these fruits on the street. I, of course, was curious. Phill bought us 3, so we could each eat one. The flesh is kind of pear-like, and the thin skin is...like a thick bosc pear or something. You gotta hollow out the seeds like a melon though. Not too shabby, but for all my Korean readers, I'd appreciate if someone could tell me the name of this thing.
Saturday, we spent the day prepping food and cooking! Phill threw me a birthday party! WHEEE!! I even got some birthday presents, which were completely unexpected! The best one has got to be the pink face-diaper embroidered with pandas from Philip. :)
On Sunday, Bethany and I went to church! Yes!! The highlight of our trip! We didn't go to see Phill, we went to go to church! Churches (non-Catholic, and non-Japanese) are hard to come by in Japan! We went to Phill's church, which was lovely! Afterwards, we had a fellowship lunch where we ate sausages! This trip just kept getting better and better - B and I haven't had any good sausages since we left home! Then, we went to Duryu Park to rent bikes and look at cherry blossoms. There was a huge yellow-sand storm that day. Phill found a military monitoring site that said the yellow sand was normally in the 10's or something but that Sunday the yellow-sand hit the thousands! There was about 1km visibility because of the sand!
So yeah, we rented bikes and here's me and Phill on a tandem. We didn't get any stares because well, we blend in. Philip and Bethany, however, got quite a bit of attention and some stares. First place in the stare-factor goes to the ajushi who took a movie of the white people on a bike!
Afterwards, we went for dinner at a lovely restaurant. My STEAK meal included soup, salad, garlic bread, red wine, coffee cake, fruit, parfait, and coffee. It cost a whopping 29,000 won. The only strange thing is that the white stuff in my potato...well, I was excited at the giant blob of "sour cream" in my potato until I tasted it and it was kinda sweet... It was actually whipped cream!
And that was pretty much that. We left Phill's early on Monday to hit up Seoul and shop at Insadong. Then we went to Lotte Department Store to eat some tasty Krispy Kremes. Nothing like going to Korea to eat Krisy Kreme! Then I proceeded to blow a disgusting amount of money on a can of dried ginseng for my mom. I almost punched the saleslady in the face because she was just SO annoyingly aggressive and wouldn't stop trying to sell me crap!
But all in all, very lovely vacation! The people are so friendly and they actually speak other languages!! We met lots of Koreans who speak English, Chinese, and Japanese! Compare that to here, where people pretty much only speak...Japanese. Bleh.
Big thanks to Phill for sleeping on the couch and giving up his dreamy cushy bed (it was hard to get back into sleeping on my floor) and for hosting us and feeding us luscious strawberries and delightful cheddar cheese! Seeya again in...a couple of years? ;)
Anyway, we landed in Seoul, dumped our stuff into a locker (which we also had trouble because we couldn't understand why the machine was rejecting our 1000w bills - turns out they were too new). Rain was forecast, so we decided to hit up the palace before the rain soaked us. We found our way there and paid the whopping 1000w admission. The castle was lovely, and much more colourful than any we'd seen in Japan. Here I am with a statue of King Sejong. Do I look much like him?
We'd seen these fruits on the street. I, of course, was curious. Phill bought us 3, so we could each eat one. The flesh is kind of pear-like, and the thin skin is...like a thick bosc pear or something. You gotta hollow out the seeds like a melon though. Not too shabby, but for all my Korean readers, I'd appreciate if someone could tell me the name of this thing.
Saturday, we spent the day prepping food and cooking! Phill threw me a birthday party! WHEEE!! I even got some birthday presents, which were completely unexpected! The best one has got to be the pink face-diaper embroidered with pandas from Philip. :)On Sunday, Bethany and I went to church! Yes!! The highlight of our trip! We didn't go to see Phill, we went to go to church! Churches (non-Catholic, and non-Japanese) are hard to come by in Japan! We went to Phill's church, which was lovely! Afterwards, we had a fellowship lunch where we ate sausages! This trip just kept getting better and better - B and I haven't had any good sausages since we left home! Then, we went to Duryu Park to rent bikes and look at cherry blossoms. There was a huge yellow-sand storm that day. Phill found a military monitoring site that said the yellow sand was normally in the 10's or something but that Sunday the yellow-sand hit the thousands! There was about 1km visibility because of the sand!
So yeah, we rented bikes and here's me and Phill on a tandem. We didn't get any stares because well, we blend in. Philip and Bethany, however, got quite a bit of attention and some stares. First place in the stare-factor goes to the ajushi who took a movie of the white people on a bike! 
Afterwards, we went for dinner at a lovely restaurant. My STEAK meal included soup, salad, garlic bread, red wine, coffee cake, fruit, parfait, and coffee. It cost a whopping 29,000 won. The only strange thing is that the white stuff in my potato...well, I was excited at the giant blob of "sour cream" in my potato until I tasted it and it was kinda sweet... It was actually whipped cream!
And that was pretty much that. We left Phill's early on Monday to hit up Seoul and shop at Insadong. Then we went to Lotte Department Store to eat some tasty Krispy Kremes. Nothing like going to Korea to eat Krisy Kreme! Then I proceeded to blow a disgusting amount of money on a can of dried ginseng for my mom. I almost punched the saleslady in the face because she was just SO annoyingly aggressive and wouldn't stop trying to sell me crap!
But all in all, very lovely vacation! The people are so friendly and they actually speak other languages!! We met lots of Koreans who speak English, Chinese, and Japanese! Compare that to here, where people pretty much only speak...Japanese. Bleh.
Big thanks to Phill for sleeping on the couch and giving up his dreamy cushy bed (it was hard to get back into sleeping on my floor) and for hosting us and feeding us luscious strawberries and delightful cheddar cheese! Seeya again in...a couple of years? ;)
