I went to Seoul. Insert pun(s) here.

Last weekend Gabrielle and I took some time off, jumped on a plane and headed to South Korea. We were there from Friday afternoon till Monday morning, and had an amazing time. We stayed with Rhoda and Johan who are connected to me in many various ways, and were excellent hosts. Johan had to work/watch soccer while we were there, but Rhoda was free and showed us around the city. I've never been such a lazy tourist, but it was nice not to worry and just relax. Here are some photos from our trip.











On Saturday we went to a palace. Happily, they also had traditional garb to try on for free, so we indulged our inner top model and went for it. You can see that Gabrielle and I retained our inner Japanese spirit with the peace sign.










After the palace, we went to Insadong-- a fun (and touristy) market street with some art galleries scattered about. We were approached twice by people wanting to take a quick survey. First by 2 little girls who were out on assignment from their English class and then by 4 law students who wanted to know what our shopping habits are. Both groups spoke better English than nearly all of the students I teach. A little depressing, but maybe a little inspiring too?








These photos were taken in Daejeon city-- where my friend Erin lives. We met up with her and Julia, who lives in Pusan, for dinner. We didn't eat the chicken feet or silk worm larva, but instead feasted on Korean BBQ and reminisced about our university days. We had our own mini Mount Allison reunion as all 4 of us were in the 2007 graduating class.

On Sunday we headed back out into the depths of Seoul for some shopping and soccer. There was a free game at the World Cup stadium-- FC Seoul vs FC Tokyo. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather (and Tokyo's win).










On our last night we went up to Seoul Tower. There was a random art exhibit (hence the flying man) which added a little something to the tower. At the top there are chain link fences that lovers put locks on to symbolize their love.. awww. Well "awww" until you realize that they must cut off 90% of the locks every year, we found very few with dates older than 2007.