When Alex and I found out our good friend Nooree was getting married, we were thrilled. When we found out his wedding would be in South Korea we were even more excited - there's nothing we love more than a travel adventure! Also, we neither of us had taken a full week of work off since our ski trip to Utah over a year ago so we were stoked for a much-needed break.
At an ungodly hour of the morning, we took off on our 14.5 hour flight (direct, thank goodness!) to Seoul. We flew Korean Air which was the most polite and orgnized airline I've ever flown. The flight itself was so pleasant, I almost didn't mind the super long trip.
We spent our first day in Seoul exploring. We had a traditional ox bone soup for breakfast, took a nice walk around the neighborhood where our hotel was, and ate dinner in the very trendy
SMT in Gangnam with kpop music videos on the ceiling. I was so impressed that we were easily able to navigate the public transit system.
We took a full day to celebrate our good friend Nooree and his new wife Sookyun. We stayed at the
Lotte Hotel where their wedding events were so it was a very easy day for us. The wedding itself was all in Korean, and, while we didn't understand most of what was being said, it was easy to interpret the beautiful ceremony. Guests ate lunch during their Christian ceremony which was followed by a beautiful Korean ceremony. One cool tradition that I really enjoyed watching: the mother of the groom throws dates and then walnuts to the bride and groom who attempt to catch them with a piece of fabric. These represent how many girls (dates) and boys (walnuts) the couple will have in the future. We finished the wedding festivities with a drink with the newlyweds at the lobby bar before they headed off to their honeymoon. Nooree's mom hosted us that evening at her family's restaurant in Seoul. The cuisine was Korean inspired Chinese and every bite was sensational. It tasted nothing like the greasy American Chinese food that I have come to know and love. It wasn't really the type of occasion where you could take a lot of pictures so the few I have from it are blurry at best.
We spent the rest of the trip taking in all of the sites of the city. We explored one of the palaces and the business area surrounding it.
We had a fancy dinner at
La Yeon, and checked out the aquarium inside the COEX.
We strolled around Gangnam, people watched, and ate at a surprisingly sophisticated and delicious mall food court. We took a food tour one night and a market tour during one day.
We traveled to the preserved Bukchon Hanbok village and hiked the hills to see all the charming homes.
We visited the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art and the Korean War Memorial and Museum.
We had the pleasure of getting to spend time with Nooree and Sookyun upon their return form their short honeymoon when they took us around Insadong and shopping for skin care products (it's all the rage in Korea). I got a mini makeover at a make-up shop in the subway which was immaculately clean and so much fun. We discovered some new favorite foods (
tteokbokki for me and
hotteok for Alex).
We took the cable cars up to the
Namsan Tower to get a beautiful bird's eye view of the city before departing.
Overall, we soaked in the city and loved every minute of it.
Seoul is one of the only foreign cities where I could see myself living. It is by far the cleanest city I've ever visited. On our final day, we saw a few police officers polishing life-size cartoon-like police figures outside of a precinct. I saw not one bug nor rodent. I continued to be surprised by the level of cleanliness of the restrooms (from inside restaurants to in the subways to portable toilets on the street). We went to a bunch of open markets: dongdaemun, namdaemun, and myeongdong. All had amazing delicious food and all were super clean and a ton of fun. The culture in Korea is fairly homogenous so we stuck out like sore thumbs in every crowd. But everyone was very friendly and the English-friendly transportation system made it extremely easy to get around. The
dusty air did bother my eyes but not enough to keep me from coming back.
Our 14 hour flight back to JFK was made even more pleasant with Korean Air's lovely service and our Global Entry access which pushed us to the front of all the lines. Overall, this was another fantastic vacation for us to add to the books...and another city I'd love to return to one day in the future!
