Good for the Seoul

Now that I'm out of commission in the babysitting world, we are taking advantage of Drew's long weekends and doing some adventuring!  On Friday, we decided to take a little day trip to Seoul.  It was so much fun to get out of Songtan and start seeing new things.  We left the house with no plans other than making it to Seoul.  We had no idea which train station to ride to and no idea what things to go see.  We took the almost 2 hour train ride from Songtan Station to Seoul Station, seemed like a good one to choose, and began our adventure! :)

The first thing we saw when getting off the train! Somehow, I don't think there would be enough gas masks to go around! ;)

Right outside of the train station was a BIG city and LOTS of people! (shocking.)  We walked down the side walk next to the giant buildings and ran into this beautiful piece of history!

Sungnyemun Gate: this is one of the Eight Gates of Seoul. The gates used to be part of a wall that surrounded the city of Seoul. It's crazy to see this in the middle of such a big city!

We met a mom and daughter from Canada and they took our picture :)

The ceiling inside the gate.

Across the street from the gate was Namdaemun Market.  Saying it was huge is an understatement.  There were streets and streets and more streets filled with shops, stands, and hundreds of people.  You could buy whatever you wanted; socks, underwear, blankets, towels, food, souvenirs, purses, shoes, clothes, and SO MUCH MORE! I LOVE exploring the markets in Korea!  This was like a dream world for me!  We walked through the streets and looked through everything we could!  We found some little gifts to send home and some delicious snacks!

This is the very beginning of the main street of the market. You can see how crowded it is up ahead!

An entire street of blankets and pillows!

Okay the next thing we saw was the highlight of not only Drew's day, but will probably be the highlight of his entire year in Korea.  When we first started dating, Drew found a video on Reddit of a guy in Korea making a honey candy called Kkultarae.  They start with a block of sold honey and turn it into 16,000 strands of honey.  Drew was absolutely obsessed with this video.  He showed it to me so many times and thought it was the coolest thing ever.  Keep in mind, this was before he had even enlisted in the Air Force, let alone gotten his assignment to Korea.  
Here is the original video he watched.   

Once we found out that we were coming to Korea, Drew said he HAD to find one of these guys and try this candy for himself!  We knew there had to be a stand in Seoul, so we kept our eyes peeled.  As we were walking, I saw a booth and said, "Drew.. look!"  You would have thought he won a million dollars!  He was the happiest person EVER.  I took a video of our "live show" the guy saud he'd give us, but unfortunately it doesn't have sound due to my new phone case :(  We will take another video next time we visit Seoul!!!

After more walking, we found a place to eat lunch.  We usually base our decision on the pictures of the food that most restaurants have in the windows.  And, we've realized the cheap places usually advertise their prices out front, so we look for that too!  I'm sure we were the only Americans that ate at this restaurant all day, maybe all week!  It was so tiny, but the food.. ohhhhhh the food was delicious!  (AND I ate my whole meal, noodles included, with chopsticks!)

Drew had fried rice with tempura fried shrimp (ebi).

We shared my FAVORITE, Udon noodles.

I had tempura fried pork filled with cheese called, Don Katsu.

After eating, we walked around the market a little more and then headed back to the train station.  On the way back, we passed some produce stands and I saw the most beautiful, amazing, awesome thing ever...

These grapes are exactly like Concord grapes, but apparently they're not.. some kind of cross I guess. BUT they're SO expensive in our area! They're about 10,000 won for one bowl at the street markets and more expensive at the commissary! This was the most amazing thing ever! We bought a bowl and couldn't help but munch on them the whole way home. A few pesticides can't hurt ;)

It was such a fun day in Seoul!  We are planning to go back to another part of the city this coming weekend!  We're trying to get as many trips in as possible this month!  

In other news, I have a few random pictures that I want to add.

So, you can't see Rooney, but Drew has him on the leash. We were walking him on base to the dog park and this Korean guy slowed his car to barely even moving, rolled his window down, and stared at Rooney FOREVER. This happens everywhere we go! People are fascinated by him! I mean, I know he's absolutely perfect, but it still cracks me up. I swear Rooney is getting extra cocky from all of the attention ;)

This weekend was beautiful. Not too hot, less than 50% humidity (which is amazing), and so sunny! This picture was taken at the top of the hill on base. It looks out on the flight line and you can see a big city put past the base. On normal days, it's hard to even see the city through the smog!

Look how expensive produce is here! :(  $9.83 for a pound of green onions, which was around $5.60 for one bunch,  and the worst, $12 for a watermelon!!!!!  I want to cry.

And that's all!  My stitches come out TOMORROW!!!!  So don't you worry, I'll have a lovely video of that to upload! :)