Annyeonghaseyo Korea!

We visited Seoul, Korea last week after sending Eliza off to her USA school trip. Renfred decided to use his precious leave to join the Youth Camp. We stayed in a Boutique hotel with individualized decoration in each room. The 2nd and 3rd pictures were taken at the entrance of the hotel.

These 2 pictures were taken in the lobby of the hotel. According to the manager, it is less than 6 months old, located in the town centre of Itaewon, (Itaewon means Foreigner in Korean). This place is near the US army base.

Peter in the Seoul's Metro waiting for the train. The centre picture shows the Gate of Dongdaemun.

We took a Day-Tour Bus which costs us 10,000 won each. Deoksungung Palace, also known as the Palace of Virtue and Longevity is one of the many tourists stops which we visited. The trees here are so lovely and the birds are quite big in size.

Peter answering a phone call, sitting in the middle of the palace gate and throwing arrows into vase-like vessels; a game played during that time.

Can you spot Peter in the 3rd picture?

Those jars on the left are for fermenting bean paste. The 3rd picture shows a hut hanging with different types of handmade baskets.

Handsome amongst the flowers. He was fascinated with the ancient sundial. The rooms are quite small with low ceiling.

The Day-Tour Bus also brought us to Insa-dong Street, one of the most memorable attractions in Seoul and represents the focal point of Korean traditional culture and crafts. Stores in Insa-dong specialize in a wide variety of goods that can only be purchased or appreciated in Korea: hanbok (traditional clothing), hanji (traditional paper), traditional teas, pottery, and folk crafts.

At Insa-dong we visited a Chatjip which is a hanok teahouse that serves home-made traditional tea. I had a cup of 5 taste tea and Peter a Jujube tea. We enjoyed it with some rice crackers. The 3rd picture shows a road side stall selling sweet potatoes fried in different ways.

The left picture shows a stationery shop with brushes of different sizes. The next picture shows a shop selling handmade metal antique cars.

We tried their Korean BBQ pork and beef. They come with many side dishes, kimchi and fresh vegetables which we have not seen before, even the mint leaves are extremely big.

More pictures taken with figurines; pictures 1 and 2 were taken outside a police station. Besides Insa-dong, we also shopped at Myeong-dong and Dongdaemun Market.


Picture 1 shows the Seoul Tower in the background. The next 2 pictures are busy streets of Dongdaemun and Myeong-dong.

Thank GOD for the trips we could take and for safety for the family. Thank GOD also for upgrade to Business Class on our journey back from Seoul to Singapore. What a treat :)

Now back to reality - loads of laundry (Eliza's and ours) to wash. So far we have washed about 8 machine loads and there's still about 5 more to go :(