Day 1- Seoul

We made it!  After a long haul from Ottawa, we arrived this morning in Seoul at 3:30am.  Everything went smoothly from the plane ride to picking up our luggage to finding a taxi to take us to the SWS.  Thank goodness.  We arrived shortly after 5:00 (it was about a 60km drive from the airport to the guesthouse).  We quickly got settled (meaning we dumped our stuff in the room) and changed into our pjs for a quick nap.

We woke up after a 3 hour nap got ready and set out to get to know Seoul.  Well...we managed to look for somewhere to eat for about 45 minutes. Actually we were searching for a Starbucks. We heard it was around the corner, but WHICH CORNER?  Sooo..we did some exploring and found out that nothing was opened!  We finally found some bakery that just opened at stocked up on some baked goodies. We got to have our first breakfast at THE COFFEE BEAN and TEA LEAF shop.  Yum!  After that we went searching for some Diet Pepsi, but sadly we only found Coke.  We brought all our goodies back to the room and tried to set out a plan.

Our day started with getting to know the subway system.   Looking at the subway map it was pretty overwhelming, but by the end of the day we were transferring left and right.  We had some issues in the beginning about the tourist card, but ended up getting the hang of it.  Great system!  Our first stop was Namdaemum Market.  I LOVED IT!  It was everything that I expected and more from an Asian market. There were knock-offs galore.  We didn't buy anything, but it was just exciting to be part of that atmosphere. The hustle and bustle of people trying to find the latest "Pradalen" bag. ahhaha  Then it was time for lunch. I had some worrisome experiences eating in an outdoor food alley, but everything went well. No tummies aches from our lunch which really consisted of rice and Bulgogi (beef and noodle).  After lunch, we took the subway to find a palace or temple.

On our way there, we ended up finding this quaint neighbourhood with narrow cobble streets.  This area was very chic in a very traditional old way. Restaurants that appeared "high-end" where in these ancient looking buildings which made it a very cool place to eat (meaning a great tourist trap).  After walking around there we ended up find the Gyeongbok-gung Palace.  The grounds house the National Museum and National Folklore Museum. It was beautiful. Finally some place that doesn't resemble a North American site.  Unfortunately, we arrived at 4:45 and the museums closed at 5:00.  Oh well, we got to walk around the grounds and had some picture opportunities.  Hopefully we'll be back later on this week to actually get to see what was inside the museum.

Around 6:00 we decided to head back to the guest house, we had grand plans of a wonderful Korean dinner suggested by Mme Savard's friend. However....we called it a night and order Domino's pizza. :0)
Until tomorrow...


p.s. I'm soooo tired that I'm not going to read this over.  ;0)