Lovely Seoul Extravaganza!

September? I haven't updated since September? OOPS.

Don't worry, nothing much happened since then.

Let's talk about Korea!

So, this one time, Andrew and I went to Seoul for a couple days. Most random holiday ever. We were pretty unprepared beyond, like, getting to the airport. The vaguest of plans as to what to do. Almost no knowledge of Korean (I could say hello, and by the time we left we managed to add thank you to our vocabulary, although I've since forgotten it again). It was fantastic!

We'd had a holiday together before, but never one involving airports, something we both love, so we got to Narita really early for an airport photoshoot. Then off to Seoul in our Airbus 380. The flight is only a couple hours which is so close that there's really no excuse for not visiting Korea if you're living in Japan. A bit of a photoshoot when we arrived at Incheon, then a bit of trouble using the ticket machines for the train from the airport. This did not seem to bode well for the rest of our trip - like, half an hour in the country and we were already stupid tourists! - but that was the only time anything like that happened. Well, we had trouble finding our hotel, but that was because the directions on their website really weren't as helpful as they could have been. Hotel found, it was time for dinner! Korea! Land of delicious foods! Yeah, we went to California Pizza Kitchen because we were hungry and tired and I was thrilled to see CPK and Andrew had never eaten there. It was delicious. No regrets! Then Starbucks. While wandering around looking for our hotel, we'd seen an interesting looking Starbucks, so we went back there. The outside looked like a traditional Korean building, and the inside was different too. Love stumbling across a concept store! It was near to closing, so we weren't there for long, but it might be my favourite Starbucks ever.

The next day (our only full day), we headed to Gyeongbokgung Palace after breakfast in our hotel. It's a huge complex, so there were a lot of pictures to take! Also visited the National Folk Museum of Korea because it was free and right there. Wandered away from the complex and ended up in the Samcheongdong neighborhood and, since it seemed cool, we had a wander there. Ended up enjoying drinks at the Rainforest Cafe of coffeeshops, Zoo Coffee. Coffee is hugely popular in Seoul, and it's unbelievable how many coffee shops, chain or independent, there are. After that relaxing interlude, it was off to Namdaemun Market, the oldest and largest market in Korea. Also, the one most filled with people selling the most unbelievable crap and preparing food on the dirty ground. It was an experience. The next experience was N Seoul Tower which was a lot more trouble to get to than we expected. A long walk (uphill!) to a cable car, and then a walk up a bunch of stairs to actually get to the tower. But once we were finally there we were able to get a good view of Seoul and stayed there long enough to see the night view as well. Then back down for dinner at a juk (porridge) restaurant by our hotel. Unnecessary (but delicious) amounts of pumpkin porridge were consumed. Finally, a trip to Seoul's gay district (delightfully called Homo Hill) where we went to a Nordic bar that was lovely, by far the least terrifying place in the vicinity.

Breakfast at our hotel again in the morning where I was thrilled to find hashbrowns and ate so much as to feel like I was dying for a couple hours. We had figured out some plans for the day, but they were ruined by rain. Boo! So, we ended up going to Insadong (very traditional neighborhood) and hanging out at Ssamziegil, an art and shopping place. A bit of shopping, some coffee and waffles (another popular thing in Seoul), then it was time to head back to the airport. Some last minute shopping to get rid of the last of our money, some lunch, and then it was back to Tokyo!

So, we weren't there for long, but we managed to see a lot (while also spending a lot of time sitting around in coffee shops and watching k-dramas in our hotel). It was an interesting place to visit! But, of course, the company was the best part. It was lovely to have an epic (if short) vacation so soon before Andrew left Japan.

And speaking of leaving Japan, I'll be doing that soon too. I'll be heading back to Americaland in February. SO SAD. But I'll talk about that another time. For now, enjoy a bunch of pictures of Korea!