May brought highly anticipated anticipated visitors to us as Nancy's parents and sister braved the long flight to pay us a nice 2 week visit. Fortunately, we had great whether and even the typical yellow dust stayed away so we were able to get out and do lots of exploring.
As we did during Jason's visit the prior year, we started out slow with a trip into Itaewon for some shopping and we also went for a bird's eye view of Seoul from Namsan Tower. This time, rather then climb the mountain on foot, we opted for the easier route by taking the cable car up and then walking down so they could enjoy seeing the beautiful park and get up close to the old Seoul wall.
Visitors - Schwans (May 2008)
View of Seoul from Namsan Tower.
Josh on the observation deck of Namsan Tower.
Namsan Tower from the base.
Clockwise from top - Everyone taking a break on the way down Namsan Mountain (Seoul City Wall on the right); The Namsan cable car which we rode up; Josh at the pond in Namsan Park at the base of Namsan Mountain.
Next we visited Gyeongbokgung - the main palace in Seoul. Built in 1394, the palace now is largely a rebuilt structure thanks to damage from the Japanese occupation and from the Korean War. However, it is a well executed replica of the original which was the main palace for the Joseon Dynasty for approximately 600 years. Today, it is also the site of the "Blue House", or Presidential Residence, although we did not have a chance to visit that area on this trip.
After the palace visit, we treated the Schwan's to their first Korean meal by visiting Insa-Dong (Seoul's art district) and stopping at an excellent Kalbi (Korean Bar-B-Que) restaurant there. Kalbi is our kid's favorite meal here and consists of beef or pork grilled on a brazier right at your table. This also gave us a chance to sample the local firewater here - Soju. Unfortunately, afterward we had planned to see an outdoor performance of "The Last Empress" but bad weather in the area canceled the show to our great disappointment.
Left - The National Folk Museum of Korea on the site of Gyeongbokgung.
Right - Sarah and Josh ride a Haetae (legendary Korean guardian). Haetaes are guardians against disaster and prejudice as well as all forms of violent change. You will find them at the entrances to almost all Asian historical sites and government buildings. OK, three guesses as to what animal they represent? Dragon - No; Lion - No; Fire-Eating Dog - BINGO! Oh and because they despise change and "new things" they are said to eat children who get to close. Uhm...Anybody seen my kids? They were around here somewhere...
Random examples of Palace art.
Gyeongbokgung
Our palace visitors waiting among some more Haetae in Gyeongbokgung.
During the week I went back to work and the kids headed back to school. Nancy didn't slacken the pace much though. For the next few days, Nancy arranged shopping trips to Namdaemun, Sincheon, Itaewon and Dongdaemun markets. They even spent an afternoon at Spa Day for a pedicure (er...I think Art was allowed to pass on this).
Once the weekend arrived we were back at it attending Sarah's Spring Choir Concert, the Seoul Foreign School International Fair, shopping at the Dongdaemun Night Market and attending "Nanta, The Cooking Show!"
Nanta in particular became very interesting. Nanta is a non-verbal performance show where 4 cooks work to prepare a wedding feast by a deadline. In preparing the feast the cooking tools (pots, pans, food, other cooks) are used as drums "integrating Korean traditional 'Samulnori' rhythm".into the performance. It's actually a fantastic performance and very funny (think of The Carl Burnett Show campy humor with drums and cooking). To top it all, various audience members are selected to participate during the show and Art was lucky enough to be called on stage to play the groom for the wedding feast. He looked very surprised as he was married off to his Korean bride (and we all had a very good laugh).
Upper Left - Elaine and Sandy at Spa Day getting manicures and pedicures.
Upper Right - Sandy, Elaine and Sarah shopping at the Dongdaemun night market
Center - Art and his new Korean wife at Nanta.
Bottom Left - Art, Elaine and Sandy at Buddha's Belly (Thai food) for lunch in Itaewon.
Bottom Right - Sarah singing at the spring choir concert.
Next up, Nancy took the family for a walk on our little mountain and then we all went to Korean House for a traditional wedding feast and Korean Traditional Dance show. In this performance, Sarah was selected to go on stage and had a chance to play the drum and to dance a few steps with the dancers.
After all that, there was still more to come. Once again, the pace slowed a tad while the kids and I returned to more mundane tasks (work/school) but then we all took a quick day off and we traveled to the east coast to see Seoraksan National Park. Seoraksan is the 3rd highest mountain peak in Korea and is referred to locally as the "Alps of Asia". While perhaps not quiet that spectacular, it is a gorgeous set of mountains and we had a nice day hiking there (unfortunately, the tram to the top was closed due to high winds so no trip to the top for us).
Finally, on their last full day in Korea, we traveled to Suwon to visit the walled city there. Unfortunately, getting lunch there proved to be a challenge and entailed a lot more walking than we planned so we didn't get far around the wall, but we did see the best parts and had a great time.
Then it was finally time for good byes and we whisked an exhausted set of visitors off to the airport. It was sad to see them go but I'm fairly sure we may see them again. I think the shop owners here may pay for their tickets!
Left - Sarah at the East Sea shore on the way to Seoraksan.
Right - Why nobody lingers at the East Sea, A day's catch hung out to sun dry. Ah, the odors of Korea.
Seoraksan Park - The Seorak mountain range as seen over a dry river bed. This stream will barely keep to it's banks in the summer during monsoon season.
Buddha statue on the hiking trail into Seoraksan National Park.
More Seoraksan peaks
Seoraksan could give the Smokey Mountain National Park a run for it's money. Fog clings to the mountains all day.
My kids - Bigfoot Sarah and Josh the "Yet"-ee ("are we there yet, are we there yet").
Above - Our traditional Korean Feast at Korea House
Right - Posing with the traditional dancers after the show.
Our last day exploring. The walled city of Suwon.
