January was a difficult month because Rob was teaching intensives (torturous 12 hour days) and I was taking a few extra classes too (including an extra afternoon kindy trial class which is really hard work!)
We wanted to go on a spa trip or something relaxing for our 4 day Seollal (Lunar New Year) break, but we were offered free accommodation at our friends’ apartment in Seoul, while they were on holiday. It turned out well because we had no money by the end of the month anyway! We planned to do a few things that we hadn’t done yet in Seoul, but it ended up being a pretty stressful holiday because I got really sick 😦
Anyway here’s a quick run-down.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and spent over an hour walking around Gangnam trying to remember where our friends’ apartment was, but eventually found it! Then we headed out on the subway to Lotte World Amusement Park. It was a fun night but there were long queues and a lot of the rides were closed. I really wanted to go on the hot air balloons which circle around the ceiling and give you a view of the indoor rides (sounds boring but the balloons were pretty), but the ride was closed by the time we made it there. We ended up doing: log flume, bumper cars, drunken teacup, watching the parade, haunted house movie and comet express. Rob also did a gravity drop ride. Rob was really looking forward to a roller coaster but the outdoors one was closed.
Wet and grey Gangnam
We spent Friday morning wandering around the Bukchon hanok village taking photos and going into the little shops. There were lots of cute souvenir/indie jewellery shops that were open despite the public holiday. Then we headed down to Insadong to get some street food, browse more souvenir shops and enjoy the sun. We had the best hotteok (fried caramel pancake) with bits of peanut inside. We also watched a demonstration with 3 men making “16000 string” traditional honey nut sweets – so amazing!
You can see the process here:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg28Kx6__88
They’re very tasty too.
After Insadong we took the subway to Itaewon and looked around trying to find somewhere to have lunch. We also popped into the foreign food marts looking for Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but couldn’t find any 😦 We ended up having a late lunch at a really popular South African restaurant called Braii Republic. So glad we made it! We had gourmet Boerewors rolls and I had Amarula cream and bought some Biltong to take home. At that point I was feeling very flu-ish – I was hot, dizzy, faint and had very sore lungs, so I didn’t even really know where I was!
For some reason we decided to walk from Itaewon to Yongsan to go to the National Museum. It was a long walk which I really struggled with, and I ended up just curling up and sleeping at the benches at the museum because I felt so terrible. After I fell down the stairs on the way out I realised it was probably time to give up and go home haha. We had Vietnamese food (pho and phat thai) in Gangnam and then I fell asleep at 9. I had a terrible feverish sleep and we decided to go home on the Saturday after eating some delicious gourmet waffles and visiting the Art Centre.
So all-in-all it wasn’t the best holiday but at least we got away and did a few different things!
Carly In Korea 