Days 5 and 6: Seoul Fails

Saturday and Sunday were spent in Seoul with Ryan and although we had a great time together, some of our plans didn't quite turn out as expected.

Our main plan for Saturday was to take a trip to Dragonhill Spa, a well-known bathhouse with multiple floors of baths and saunas. There was even an exercise room complete with a mechanical horseback riding exercise machine shaped like a real horse! Kim and I were excited to go and even got Ryan pumped for the adventure, but when we arrived it was closed for renovations.

We were a little bummed out, but we (mostly me) decided to take advantage of being in the Inchon neighborhood and visit the nearby National Museum of Korea. Maybe a bit overambitious, we tried to walk the 3/4 mile to the museum. After wandering aimlessly for a while, we gave up and rode the subway one stop to the site. What did we ever do without Google maps?


Starving, we stopped at the snack bar before heading inside. I got the "lunch box" and didn't realize until I sat down to eat that what I thought was lettuce was actually a bunch of tiny minnows. They actually weren't that bad, just a little salty, but I didn't have the stomach to eat them all.

The museum was interesting but also a little overwhelming - it was huge. My favorite part was a collection of Buddha statues from different Korean dynasties.

Saturday night was spent in Gangnam - one of the richest, hippest neighborhoods in Seoul. After an obligatory picture in front of a sculpture dedicated to Psy's Gangnam Style song, we grabbed dinner at an Irish pub and went to a few bars. One was pretty cool - it was "Woodstock" themed with vinyl records everywhere and free popcorn with your drinks.

There was a collection of huge inflated balloons on the streets that are going to be released on New Years. Everyone was signing their names, so we added ours.

All of Sunday morning was spent attempting to watch the Redskins/Eagles game (airing at 10:30am here). It didn't work out so well - we overwhelmed the poor bartender when we arrived. She spent 20 minutes on the phone with her manager trying to set it up but wasn't able to get to the right website. She did manage to pull up pre-game highlight reels, but it wasn't quite the same :)

We said goodbye to Ryan and headed to the airport to catch a flight to Jeju, and island off the southern coast of the country.

Dinner was some more fried chicken and a Cass beer.

We're staying in a shared room at a hostel for the first time on this trip, so will let you know how it goes!