Tour Day in Seoul

Started off this morning and had breakfast at the hotel. Wow.. I ate a very traditional Korean breakfast and used my chopsticks!... I am getting better every time I used them. Below are pics but our tour guides were great. They were volunteers from Holt. Wait... Mi an was but she brought her boyfriend with her. They were fun to hang with for the next 6 plus hours. We started off from our subway at the Coex Mall/World Trade Center to go to the Main Palace. That was neat as we watched the changing of the guard and toured the grounds. After that we went for some real nice Korean food. I had the octopus (spicy dish) while the kids ordered the Spicy Bulgogi (beef dish). My brother ordered the vegetable pancake (Very tasty). Well, the way the meal works is that it is a social meal. You eat your soup, fix the rice in your bowl and then you share the entire table until you cannot eat anymore! The spice kept you eating your rice. The neat thing is that they poured hot water in the sticky rice bowl to get the crusty rice from the bottom. Mi An said it had a different flavor. I compared that to brownie edges (a treat?). We ate, laughed, and got to know each other.

We shopped around that area but then I asked to go to the big outddor market to get gifts. OMG was that market large. You cannot see the entire market in a day. Saw an outdoor food vendor selling something that looked interesting. Mi An asked me if I wanted to eat it as she laughed. Then she told me it was pupa.. uggh... pre-caterpillars??? Grubbs??? nada.. was not going to happen! Anyway, were were thoroughly entertained by the characters there. The kids got us some decent bargains and then we needed to let them go. We were so tired.
These guides were unbelievable. They were going to stay with us as long as we wanted them. Actually, we just ended up giving them money for a date night out like the movies and popcorn. That got them to go as they were giving up their whole day volunteering. Felt kind of bad keeping them that long. But before they left us, they made sure we got on the right subway train! The Koreans here are such beautiful people!!!!!

Pics:

Police...They were shocked to get their pics taken!

I Drank Sweat!

Tour Guide at the Palace


Guard at Palace!

Tour guides... Mi An and Mon!!

Our Hotel Coex Intercontinental