weekend trompings

Following Children's Day and the wonderful break it gave us, the weekend seemed doubly relaxing even though we still went out and enjoyed Seoul some more. David had to go to a hospital in downtown Seoul to get a chest x-ray for his New Zealand work visa application. I went with him (quite early for a Saturday morning I might add). The hospital was right next to one of our favorite places in Seoul: Insadong. As we were walking around the area we discovered that Jogyesa temple and the area surrounding it are already decked out in lanterns in preparation for Buddha's 2554th birthday. The initial burst of color was so overwhelming and beautiful!


Pikachu lantern!









ALL the pretty lanterns.

David was carrying a pretty huge backpack since we decided to stay in Seoul most of the day. He was getting tired so we made our way to the nearest Starbucks and hung out there for two hours or so. I managed to get some writing done on my laptop while David read and slept. When my battery finally died we decided to go out and rest in the sunlight. We passed some pretty artsy shops on our way to the park:

This shop had a cool bike and Lego display.

We found a park with a nice grassy area, which, believe it or not, is rather rare here. Most of the parks are paved with cement and such. We took off our shoes and socks and lay in the grass, soaking up some much needed sun. David had fun snapping some pictures of the local wildlife while we rested. Funny thing, out of everywhere in the world I've been: Asia, South America, Europe... the pigeon is always there.


After the nice hour or so in the sun (I think my skin is actually starting to look less translucent!) we trekked back to the subway to meet up with our friends Jacob and Amanda Moore. They wanted to come snag a free photoshoot from David (he's pretty eager for people to shoot and practice on!). We took them down to Cheonggye Stream, which is a $313 million dollar effort to beautify the downtown core of Seoul. Lanterns were strung up there too, and there were also large paper lanterns floating on the water.




After shooting some pics of Jacob and Amanda (which will be posted on David's blog sometime soon) we went to eat at Kraze Burger. It was a pretty great burger joint. It even had a cool, retro American style menu:


I had a delicious chicken sandwich, which kind of hit the spot in my craving filled diet. Good sandwiches are hard to come by here. It's funny, you don't really know what foods you'll really miss until you don't have them anymore. Last week, I found a tiny jar of REAL GREEN OLIVES in a grocery store and ate the whole thing for lunch. I miss olives. And dill pickles. Still haven't found dill pickles here. Ironic since they seem to pickle EVERYTHING.
At the stream we also passed a World Vision Fundraiser. There was a concert and a coin tossing area. I've never seen so many coins grouped together in my life.



Next weekend we're heading back to the same place for the full-blown lantern festival. I can't wait!