Reed's Rat Race

This was our view from the room at the Best Western Gangnam (don't you dare pronounce it like it's written or the taxi driver may never find it. . .it's more like Kongnaum). Can you find the Kimchi pots? Seoul is one awesome city!  Seoul is one crazy packed and busy city!  Seoul has everything you want or need (like some French-style pastries and breads!).  I never knew I was a carbohydrate or bread junkie till I was deprived of it. . .then I found Urban Cafe right near our hotel! Tuesday through Friday was crazy packed with all the touristy things we could muster.  I won't bore you with details, but here's a picture story of our stay.  I wanna go back! Palace Tours DMZ tour View to North Korea Dorasan Station-- Jean waiting for a train that will never come for those trapped in North Korea I dare you to eat that! Lunch at the DMZ Dinner with some new friends See the resemblance?  He's related!  Ancestor King Sejong

Come "Hell or Highwater" or Typhoon Malou that was hitting the area, we wanted to see Busan!  So with the help of Jennifer Hong, we rode the KTX down and spent the day walking the beautiful beach, feeding cute pigeons, shopping interesting markets, visiting the UN Memorial Cemetary, and eating (our favorite tourist pastime) yummy food. Panoramics of Busan Jean collecting shells Bidulgi Eomma (pigeon mom) This was the toilet we were expected to use! (a little hard for us who haven't perfected the Asian squat) Seafood! Then we headed back to Seoul for our last few days.  And because we were missing home (and soda and veggies and bread) we decided to eat Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  

The next morning we woke way too early.  For some reason our hotel room decided to turn the air conditioner off at 3am and we were both hot and humid.  So what did we do??? Head down to the 7eleven for some snacks (this was becoming a habit!).  What did we crave?  Something cold like . . .ice cream!  And pretty much any other snack that we couldn't read but thought it would be neat to try.  We found ourselves doing this often.  Anytime we had to head into a convenience store, we tried something new and barely legible.  Our not-famous drink was an aloe drink that had actual chunks of aloe.  It was pure NAST! Notice my humidity hair, classy don't ya think? Some of these snacks were sacrificed to the pigeons (more later) Anyway, the day was a great day for adventure.  I say adventure because we didn't really have plans and we were at the whim of anyone who would take us anywhere.  We got dressed for church (the LDS church had a Korean ward and a non-Korean ward) but be

On the way out of Seong Ju, we stopped at a small well running out of the side of the mountain and drank from the "famous" water.  My Aunt said it was safe, so we all drank! This was the view behind us. . . The agenda was determined by Aunt Jeong Su and Jong Myung so our next stop was Gayasan Mt. National Park within the Gyeongbuk Area.  We hiked a little and we were able to see the beautiful Yongmun Falls We searched for the Haeinsa Temple, but after searching in vain, they decided to take us to the museum instead. The museum housed some of the oldest print in the world taken from the nearby buddhist temple.  We enjoyed the museum and probably took way too many pictures, but we had a great time just soaking everything in.  I loved just being in the presence of my family. After a long day, our cousin took us to our hotel and we crashed for the night.  We were too exhausted to accept an invitation to eat dinner with our uncle.  Something we could not help.  We d