Last weekend I was able to take Dajeong (my 16 year old Korean friend) to Seoul with me. It was a pretty big deal to be able to take her because her mom (Yoma, my teammate) is super protective over her. I guess it is normal for Korean mothers to be over protective of their children especially the daughters. I also found out that Yoma has had 4 miscarriages and when Dajeong was born she was put in an incubator so she really is the prize child. Dajeong and I left for Seoul early Saturday morning. We met Hadley at Coex mall. Coex mall is a huge mall in Seoul that Hadley likes to call Mall of America on crack because it doesn’t make any sense and has a terribly designed layout. We were planning on going to a waterpark Saturday but ended up cancelling that due to the weather. I am told that this year’s monsoon season has lasted a lot longer than it has in the past, Lame! We ended up going to Seoul to go to the aquarium in Coex mall. The aquarium wasn’t anything exciting. It is comparable to underwater world at MOA. It was, however, interesting to see how they display the animals and fish. They make the fish tanks pretty and provide actual “homes” for the fish. Once you see the pictures you will understand what I’m saying…
Dori's yellow house...
There was only one american animal in the aquarium and it was "the american bullfrog" who's tank was next to a bunch of skinny korean frogs....
The korean fish pond.
There was a section in the aquarium where they had fish on display in random places. Here are a couple of pictures of my favorite ones…
fire hydrant fish
This one's for you mom... Coke machine fish! It even has ariel in it. Haha
Dajeong next to the phone booth of fish... I told her to pretend to be on her phone (if you look close it's in her other hand...)
There was one with a working computer in the middle of it... I thought you'd appreciate this one Dad.
It's a two headed turtle!
Dajeong in a shark!
Had to take a pic of the penguins!
This is right outside of the Aquarium.
After the aquarium we walked around the mall a bit walking in random shops. We eventually found ourselves ordering a pizza at Uno. Dajeong didn’t want any Korean food when she was with us so we took her to get a pepperoni deep-dish pizza at Uno. One of her favorite foods is cheese so she was very pleased. We ate so much there that I had to do some breathing exercises after our meal. Haha. We headed back to Hadley’s because Dajeong wanted to see her place before she went to see her cousins who happen to live in the same town as Hadley. When we got there, Dajeong had heard about Hadley making me rice krispie bars and wanted to watch Hadley some. She’s very curious about everything that we do and all the American products that we own. Dajeong loved the rice krispies. Hadley gave her a pan of them to take to her relatives to enjoy. Clearly we made a second batch for Hadley and I to enjoy. Dajeong told me that her aunt is on a diet but she ate a lot of the bars because she liked them so much. Haha!
Dajeong taking pictures of Hadley making the rice krispie bars!
Sunday, Hadley and I decided to go explore an area of Seoul that we haven’t seen yet. We ended up going to Ewha women’s university. We met up with Addie and her Korean boyfriend Jiho (aka we had a tour guide) at Ewha. The university is really cool. It’s huge! I guess it’s one of the top universities in Korea. Sharon told me that the girls who go there are snobby, maybe she’s just jealous though – who knows! While we were walking around the place we stumbled upon a familiar coffee shop… Caribou! Hadley and I were pumped to see our MN based coffee shop in Korea. We immediately went in and bought a smoothie (sorry starbucks partners). It was delicious and they even were willing to customize Hadley’s for her, which is unheard of in Korea. Starbucks will never let you customize drinks here… They may if you’re Korean, I’m not sure, but they won’t let any foreigners. Later for lunch we had some Vietnamese food. It was delicious. We had the wraps that you share family style and some soup.
The church at the University
This was really cool. These are buildings on either side of the walls. On the right there is a library and on the left is a cafeteria area. This took a while to build and a lot of money. (Hadley, Me, Jiho, Addie)
I had one of my students read this to see if it actually said Caribou... it does!
Hadley and I filled out a survey card... well we commented, everything is written in Korea. The comment reads "We love Caribou! Our smoothies were delicious! (Heart) two Minnesota USA girls".
Our Vietnamese lunch!
No comments:
Post a Comment