Seoul

Wow. Get ready for a long post! If you make it through this one, you deserve a medal. :)

We went exploring in Seoul yesterday with two other families, 6 kids 4 and under between us, and had tons of fun. There is a tour bus that runs all around Seoul, stopping at each stop every half hour, where you can buy a ticket for the day and get on and off at whatever stops as you please. We figured this would be a good way to get around, and after riding the bus all over Seoul, we decided we will never drive there, not downtown. It is nuts!

We took the bus from Osan to Yongsan (an Army post in Seoul) and went from there. Right outside the Yongsan gate is the Korean war memorial, so we looked around there for a little bit.

Here's the kids and my friend Alexis looking at the tanks. Notice the B-52 in the background on display. That's what is flown in Minot so we saw them all the time, but they are so different up close, so huge. You wonder how they stay in the air! They have lots of planes on display that you can walk up into, so that was pretty cool.

Here's the kids looking at some tanks, and more tanks below. Rayna particularly liked the "shooters".Our first stop dropped us right outside of a "Paris Baguette", so we grabbed some lunch. This little shop is all over around here and has sandwiches and pastry-ish food, so it was easy to find something "familiar" to eat. And of course, the kids love anything made with bread.Here's Tessa laughing and smiling at Rayna.

After lunch, we headed to the Namsangol Hanok Village, a re-creation of a traditional Korean village of yesteryear... the architecture is so different, and it was strange to think these little houses were for royalty. Above is a picture looking inside a small writing/drawing room. All the rooms faced a kind of courtyard, not really connecting to each other but each with a door to the outside.

The kids "playing" a traditional Korean game... or at least playing their own version of it. There were lots of little games like this going on, and arts and crafts you could take part in. Looked like a good place for a school field trip!

Princess Rayna

Our next stop was to Dongdaemun Market. Shopping mecca. People everywhere. Stores underground. Overwhelming! There is every kind of shopping here... street vendors (the kids looking at a toy above), streetside hole in the wall shops, and huge buildings with thousands of stores. We walked into one huge building that was several stories high, all fabric and clothing. Shop after shop of fabric, ribbon, sewing notions, quilts and blankets. The shopping is so different here in that there's a concentration of like items... not a lot of variety stores. If there's one book shop, there's twenty in a row. Each different area or block specializes in a certain kind of product. Hard to explain, I guess, but so interesting.

Book shops spilling out onto the street... we wondered how you would find anything?

I couldn't help snapping this one of a Korean magazine with Obama on the cover.

This whole shopping area was crazy. We found ourselves just standing on a corner for a while just taking it all in. I probably wouldn't come back here with the kids, it was way too nerve wracking (um, is that a word?) trying to constantly keep track of the kids with all of the crowds and making sure they didn't get run over by motorcycles coming down the sidewalk. But honestly, even by myself I wouldn't know where to begin shopping in a place like this not knowing the language. And I'd be totally afraid of walking around too far and getting completely lost in the maze of shopping. I've never seen anything like it... did I mention it was crazy and overwhelming?

And once again, Tessa won the "Best Baby" Award! She is so good! We left our house about 8:45 a.m., she slept for about a half hour on the first bus, then snoozed for 20 minutes or so in the stroller at the Korean village, and that was it until we got on the bus to go home at 7:30 p.m.!! And she barely made an unhappy peep the entire day. She chilled in her stroller and had lots of time out of it for the bus rides and eating. The kids all did amazingly well, but I've never had a baby who would tolerate a long day like that so well.

I had the wrong lens on my camera to catch the entirety of this gate... but here's part of what used to be (I think) the East gate of Seoul (maybe West??). Seoul used to have a wall around it, parts of it still remain, as well as a few gates like this one. Apparently you can hike parts of the wall.

Me and Dan... I especially love the gust of wind that came at just the right moment to give my hair that fan effect! The kiddos waiting at the Seoul City Tour bus stop.

All the "big kids" at the Korean village. But Koreans will usually call children this age "babies", and all these American kids together like that draw a lot of attention! The Korean people are so friendly and nice, and seem to love little kids and babies. They want to talk to them and say hello, and just smile at them. Above, when we were taking pictures of all the kids lined up, there were also several other people snapping away pictures of our kids! I thought that was so funny! And below is our friend Alyssa, drawing attention from some Korean kids. And when we were waiting at the bus stop (2 pictures above), traffic was stop and go along that street, so lots of people going by slowly in their cars would smile and wave at the kids. I felt like we were famous or something.

We didn't really know what we were in for, and as you may or may not have noticed, we only made it to two stops... but along the way saw tons of places we want to go back to and spend more time. Some touristy areas, some scenic areas, some "city" areas. It was exciting to get out of Osan and see something new. And this city is absolutely incredible... population about 10 million in Seoul, about 24 million in the greater metropolitan area. 2nd biggest metro area in the world. Big. Should keep us busy over the next couple years. :)

And now I'm finished. You're welcome.