Good Evening From Seoul

This weekend Jake and I splurged for a trip to Seoul. We left around 3 p.m. on Saturday for the bustling city. The day went smooth with some tasty meditteranean food, shoe shopping in the foreigner "big feet" district, and a cruise along the Han River.

The boat cruise left from Yeouido park. This is a pleasant, sprawling park along the river front of the small island in the city. Unfortunately, there was a bit of construction from revamping the park walks. Yet another accent of Korea that will be beautiful in 3 years. Jake and I find ourselves saying that more often than not.

The boat cruise was hard to capture on our jankity digital camera. All the night settings led to blurring and the speed setting was pitch black. Nevertheless, we hope you enjoy the few panaramas we managed to capture at dusk.

In the evening, we met up with one of our friends from Portland and grabbed some drinks at local bars in Itaewon. We hit up an Irish pub (to feel like home), The Bungalow (for sand and hammock swings), and Brickx (for an underground Masquerade ball). The evening was exciting, but we called it quits around 1 a.m. in preparation for our early departure to Everland Sunday.

Everland is Korea's Disneyland, but in my opinion, it was a different caliber all together...and I mean a lower caliber. We started off the morning cranky from lack of sleep and caffeine and then kept running into predicaments. We ignorantly waited at the wrong bus for at least 45 minutes just to find out that the correct vestibule was in the center of the 10 lanes. Then, we bitterly relocated to the middle for 20 minutes to get scowled at by a bus driver frantically gesturing a u-turn. Oh yes, we were then again at the wrong middle bus stop. Question: How many bus stops can be located outside of one subway exit? Why are no route maps posted to indicate direction? And why is there zero English in such an English focused country...ahhhhhhhhh?

Merely minutes before we almost decided to head back home, we landed on the right bus and took a deep breath. Despite some nasty lunch and the first ride, that I nearly died on, the rest of the park cheered us up. It was cheesily decorated for Halloween and park goers proudly sported different variety of animal ears about the park. All the grown men wore black kitty ears and ladies rocked everything from bats to giraffes. Why do so many people where the animal ears you ask? Well why do so many people need to buy Mikey Mouse gloves? Jake and I decided the accessible price point of Korea encourages customers to go all out. Don't worry, Jake bought a bat cape for Halloween with a full on face mask and I got some adorable panda slippers...great success!

The most eventful part of the day was the T-Express, a roller coaster with the steepest incline in the world at a 77 degree angle. Jake literally was freaking out on the way up and his legs were still shaking at the end. We are complete opposites with roller coaster fears...I get nervous only when it goes upside down and Jake believes wooden coasters are death omens. Oh buddy! What a weekend.

Miss you all.