As I mentioned last week, Em and I went up to Seoul this weekend to catch up with Aaron, and take a bit of a last minute wonder around through some parts of Seoul. While we had a schedule of thing we wanted to do, we both agreed to take to take it easy and just do what we felt like doing once we got up there.
Our first port of call in Seoul was to find a motel. As per usual, and this is a good travelers trip to anyone who visits Seoul from the rest of the country, get a place near either the bus terminal or train station, depending on how you want to get home. It makes getting home later that day a lot easier, not to mention avoiding the subway with all your luggage.
We ended up getting a place near East Seoul Bus terminal, our usual motel, for 70,000 won. It’s not that cheap, but it’s clean, comfortable, and has a nice big TV for me to watch when Em is in the shower.
On Saturday afternoon we visited the COEX mall. I used to always hit up the COEX mall when I first came to Korea as it had good food, a Mac store, and an ok book store. This time we visited the COEX aquarium, a place I had previously visited nearly 5 years ago. Em had never been and I, as usual, was happy to revisit and see some of the animals again (although I’m sure none of them remembered me!).
Afterwards, we walked around for a while, before bumping into Aaron and Cindy at Paris Croissant. We had planned to meet them in about an hour, for dinner, but this way we could all go together and catch up with the rest of the crowd.
We headed over to the Sport Complex area (apologizes for not remember the name of the area) and caught up with Stafford standing outside Starbucks (no surprise there). There, he showed us his magic iPhone which didn’t look too magically as he had dropped it earlier in the day leaving the screen cracked. Em and I actually thought it was some new screen cover he had purchased, but after realizing it wasn’t, I wanted to do nothing more than give Stafford a hug and tell him things would be ok and that there was a tomorrow.
A few minutes later, his girlfriend Jen came, and we headed out to the galbi (beef bbq) restaurant.
We enjoyed a very nice meal together and I was very happy to be able to meet Jen, who I had only once previously talked to when I was on the Seoul Podcast in the summer. We actually ended up going to the same meat place I had previously gone twice before, once to meet Stafford for the first time, and the other time during Christmas 2008 with my parents and Em. It’s a great place with good, cheap, beef.
When dinner concluded, Aaron and Cindy set off for the long haul across Seoul. It was fantastic to see Aaron and Cindy before we left Korea, as they’re both off to Borneo for a few weeks and I wouldn’t have a chance to see them again. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing them both again in the future, be it us visiting them in Korea, or more likely them holidaying in Beijing. Either way, it’ll be a enjoyable time.
We headed to ‘Twosome Cafe‘ for drinks and a piece of cake where we enjoyed another chat. I was pleased to find out that Jen had spent some time in Perth, my hometown, so we’re able to talk about that for a while.
Then of course we had to go. Like Aaron and Cindy, I’m sure we’ll be seeing Stafford again (and hopefully Jen, too!). Asia is a small place.
On Sunday we had planned to go to Suwon to see the old fortress, but after rolling out of bed around noon, we just couldn’t be bothered, We spent a few hours at TechnoMart before heading home.
Upon arriving home we noticed the rabbit’s cage was open and Millie had had free range of the apartment for the better part of the weekend. Thankfully none of the cables seemed to be chewed, but Millie was rather spooked and took a while to get out from under the bed. Her cage, too, oddly was out of shape. She had also, and God only know how, jumped onto a big table and chewed the box for a bottle of Chinese rice wine we had. Interesting.
Anyway, some photos of the weekend. Enjoy… Read more »
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