Heart & Seoul

This past weekend we went to Korea because B needed to get a new visa, and it gave us a great opportunity to make a trip out of it.  Last time B had to leave the country for his visa, he went to Korea by himself, but had such a great time that he wanted me to come along this time.  We had so much fun and I'm so glad we got to get some quality time together exploring Seoul.  

Seoul is a really fun city, and thanks to some friends of ours who had either just recently been, or who had grown up in Korea for part of their lives, we had inside tips on lots of places to see and fun food to try.  I think what we were most impressed with was how incredibly extensive and convenient the subway system there is.  We could take the subway absolutely everywhere, AND almost every time we got a seat!  (This is NOT the case in the city we live in, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, the subway is always crowded.)  And not only did we get to sit, but the seats were heated.  Yeah, you know like how some fancy cars now have heated seats for the winter?  Well in Seoul there's a heater under the subway seats that keeps 'em nice and toasty.  

I often found myself wondering if I was meant to be Korean, because between the obsession with warm seats/floors and all the food seemingly construed to not only be served hot but to stay hot while you're eating it, I was in my ideal world.  (If you don't know this about me, I like my food piping hot - I'm talking, if it doesn't burn my mouth, I don't think it's hot enough.  And in Korea, they serve many soups and other dishes in stone pots that have been heated to extremely hot temperatures - resulting in your food not only arriving boiling before your very eyes, but staying hot basically throughout your entire meal!  It's absolutely ingenious.  And not only that, but the other alternative is Korean bbq where you order a bunch of meat and grill it right there on your table as you eat.  Again, fresh hot food your entire meal.  What more could I ask for?)

For the first day and a half we tried to re-live B's last 2 day visit, which coincidentally was a year ago.  He took me to all the cool places he had seen that he wanted me to see, which were mostly all along this walking tour he had found online put out by national geographic.  The first night we went on a search in a market for this place to have dinner that he had eaten at last year, and we were so excited when we found it!  It was basically a tent set up in the middle of the street with all these meats you could choose from and then they would cook it for you right there and you could sit down on some little stools and a table to eat it. 

We stumbled upon a photo exhibition commemorating the Korean War and the 58 countries who supported South Korea and helped them to keep their freedom.  As you can see in the picture above, at the front of the exhibition was a Korean flag and an American flag.  The memorial especially highlighted US involvement in helping South Korea to retain it's independence.  It's funny how you don't realize how patriotic you are until you no longer live in the country you are a citizen of.

In the photo to the right you can see that the exhibition commemorated each country that helped South Korea in the war by flying a flag from each of those countries.  We were touched to see that the US flag was the first flag, at the start of the photo exhibition.  It made us feel so proud to be Americans.

We also happened to find supposedly one of the only Starbucks in the world whose sign is not in English. So of course we had to take a picture of it.  But wouldn't you know that about half an hour later we were walking along and spotted yet another Starbucks whose sign was also written in Korean.  Oh well, guess you can't believe everything you hear.  Another fun thing we discovered was that they were having a lantern festival along one of the smaller rivers in the city, which just happened to be near our hotel.  The festival was supposed to end before we got there, but luckily they extended it until the day we left.  We discovered it on the first day and on our last night we went back when all the lanterns were lit up.  It was pretty impressive, and below is one of the better shots we were able to get.