Vacation – Korea
For Easter break we visited Korea and had 2 full days to explore. The flight from the Philippines to Korea was only four hours which is fantastic, especially since we were traveling with nine month old Blake. We stayed at The Classic 500 which was large and spacious, like a serviced apartment. And as always, we hired a tour guide to show us around. Our first impression of Korea wasn’t fantastic. We were stuck in traffic for over two hours trying to get to our hotel. And we had the misconception that Korea would be very clean and orderly, like how we imagined Japan to be. Our tour guide said, “Korea is in the middle of many things with China and Japan…China is dirty/poor and Japan is clean, orderly, and well-off. And Korea falls somewhere between the two.”
Day 1
Us with our tour guide and his van.
Our first stop was to try to find a painting and we looked at this Korean Flea Market. This place was like a cross between Greenhills (in Manila) and a U.S. thrift store.
The USA has the White House, but Korea has the Blue House for their President.
Royal Guards with tourists at Gwanghwanum gate at Gyeongbokgung Palace
While purchasing this painting from the pictured artist, some locals walking by asked our tour guide if Matt was a Hollywood actor!
After lunch we saw these street performers doing the “Farmer’s Dance”
We went inside the Samsung showroom and had fun playing with the different interactive things on display.
We walked around the streets of Gangnam.
Gangnam Style
We walked the streets of Bukchon Hanok Village where people live in the old style Korean homes.
To end the day we went to the North Seoul Tower and looked out over the city.
Day 2
We drove an hour to a Korean Folk Village where people were in costume and you could see homes to how things use to be.
Kalani crossing one of the three different kinds of bridges at the Korean Folk Village.
For lunch we stopped at a Korean BBQ restaurant and it was so good.
In Korea there are so many side dishes during meal time.
Matt wanted to hold Blake in the Moby Wrap while we walked around the South Gate Market.
A highlight of our time in Korea was visiting Baskin Robbins everyday. It took Mason a few trips before he realized that “BR” is Baskin Robbins.
Photos of our Korean Vacation here.
