Day 1: Insadong and Suwon

Our hostel in Seoul was in Insadong, one of the main shopping districts. We took a walk down the main strip before checking out, but almost all of the shops were still closed at 10 am! I did stop by Starbucks for a Toffee Nut Latte, and we passed a Dunkin' Donuts, Subway and Clark Shoes outlet too.

We wandered through a park with some elderly people exercising and lots of cool statues- but we couldn't really tell what they were because all the signs were in Korean. We stopped by Jogyesa temple and accidentally walked into some type of ceremony, but the architecture was awesome.

Our next stop was Suwon, about an hour south of Seoul. We lugged our over-packed bags on the metro for the ride. The Korail system is incredibly clean and punctual - foreign concepts after riding the metro for two years. There were lots of vending machines and a trumpet plays every time a train is approaching.

After finally making to Suwon, we took a city bus to our hotel. It's very small but super clean - and we even get leather slippers and bathrobes to wear around the room! 

We walked around for a little bit and grabbed coffee and lunch. I had kimchi soup and it. was. so. spicy.

Then we headed about 4 metro stops away to visit Ryan in Santang. It's a strip right next to Osan Air force base - we grabbed burgers at a diner, looked through all the knock-off jersey shops and got ice cream at McDonald's. McDonald's delivers here!