Seoul LDS Temple

On our way to the airport to leave Seoul, we stopped at the temple. It was just a short 10-minute walk from the metro station. It's a pretty temple. We think it's the same layout as Vegas. But this one has a Korean flag in front of it and that makes it pretty darn cool in my book.

One cool thing about the temple is that it has a street sign, like it's a monument or historical place or something. I've never seen a temple recognized with a street sign before. I feel like that's a big deal for some reason. Also, we found out from the senior couple we ran into that, like the Tokyo Temple, the Seoul Temple has rooms for LDS travelers visiting Seoul. Not just to visit the temple, but for your entire stay in Seoul. As in a VERY inexpensive alternative to booking a hotel. How did we not know about these?!

Church and Gangnam (Round 2)

We went to Church.

We were prepared to not understand a thing, but as luck would have it, one of the speakers was from the US, and he had a translator for the rest of the congregation. So we understood a third of it. :)

After church, we had lunch in a random nearby park, and then we decided to give Gangnam another try. We went to a different station and this time, we were more successful. (It's the one on the 2 line, NOT the 7.)

As far as I'm concerned, Seoul was a success.

Insadong

Insadong is a fun walking street that is crazy packed with people looking for street food and souvenirs. It's a fun atmosphere for daytime meandering, almost as much fun as Meoungdong is at night. Isa went for the waffle with honey and blueberry cream.

We thought about getting ice cream in a tube...

...but we ended up going for a local dish called bibimbap. Apparently this dish is a staple here in Seoul. It's mainly just rice with meat, veggies, and an egg. It was fine. Not amazing, not great, but not bad by any means.

After our meal, we wandered over to Cheonggyecheon (just say, "chong-guh-chon") which has an interesting history. It was originally a stream that ran through the heart of Seoul. The stream was beautiful and pure, but then it became the sewer system and the surrounding areas became the slums. Then it was paved over and became a highway. The slums were replaced by skyscrapers, and then in a effort to greenify Seoul, they took down the highway and turned it back into a stream and a beautiful park. It's like the High Line in New York, but below the city instead of above it.

We stayed there until after sunset and then headed home because we were tired from walking so much.

Old Stuff in Seoul

Today was another long walking day. It seems that we can't judge distances very well. For some odd reason, Google Maps doesn't have a distance meter on the iPad app, and we're walking a lot further than planned.

Oh well, we're seeing good stuff.

Like this...

When we arrived at the Gyeongbokgung Palace, there was a show going on, kinda like a changing of the guard sorta thing, but it was all in Korean. We didn't understand, we just took pictures.

The palace grounds were massive. Way bigger than we anticipated. 

To be honest, after about twenty minutes, it all pretty much looked the same and you just end up wondering how much more there is to go. 

Well there's more. Lots more. It went on forever.

After the palace, we wandered over to the Hanok Village. This is an old section of town that has remained mostly untouched over the years. Lanes of small houses with cool roofs scattered across a neighborhood.

We wandered for a little bit and then headed south to Insadong, which deserves its own post.

Wandering Aimlessly in Seoul

Apparently Gangnam is a huge area, and the part Psy refers to in his song is only one part of it. It's like talking about hipsters in Brooklyn. If you don't know where to go, Brooklyn is a big place, and you may get off the subway in an area that has nothing to do with hipsters. Such was the case with us in Gangnam.

Locals were mostly unapproachable, but the ones we did talk to were not nice and completely unhelpful. One kid told us the temple we wanted to see was closed. A temple that has been open continuously for over 800 years.

We wandered aimlessly until we found a park that cost $1 to get in. So we went in and wandered some more. At least this part of Seoul isn't hilly. We heard music and ended up taking a lesson to play some random instrument.

We were awful and I'm pretty sure a few of my strings were out of tune, but it was fun and totally worth a dollar. The park turned out to be the burial sites of several past emperors and their wives or something. It was interesting.

Next stop was the Bongeunsa temple, which was pretty, but not spectacular. And not closed.

Then we went up to Meoungdong. Which was awesome! Meoungdong is a fun shopping area full of lights, noise, people, and lots of street food.

We ate lots of yummy food...

And Isa bought some awesome stuff...

Ok, she didn't actually buy that stuff, but she did find a cute pair of socks that she did buy.

Welcome to Seoul

We arrived in Seoul in the early afternoon, and like we did in Tokyo, we decided to just explore our neighborhood. We looked on the map and saw a park (Namsan Park) just to the north of us so we decided to walk there. It was then that we discovered that Seoul is hilly. Like crazy hilly. Our leisurely walk to the park (which we soon learned was a mountain) turned into a 6-hour hike.

But at the top of the mountain we found several cool things, including the North Seoul Tower, a pagoda, and our favorite: "Locks of Love."

There were thousands of little locks with love notes on them locked to fences all around the lookout point. It was super cool.

We stayed up there to watch the sunset...

...and then headed back in the dark in the general direction of our apartment. The iPad's ability to track us on Google Maps, even on airplane mode, is both creepy and awesome at the same time, and proved absolutely crucial to our ability to find our apartment through the ridiculously hilly and nearly unnavigable alleyways and lanes of Itaewan (that's the neighborhood we're staying in).

Oh, and I'm sure our first impression is going to be wrong, but it's crazy how many white people are here. I realize that we're next to a US military base so this could be expat central, but still, we heard more English tonight than Korean.