We were up bright and early. Well, it wasn't bright because nobody sleeps much past 4am, but it WAS early. We ventured out in the opposite direction than we normally go. We wanted to catch a different subway line to get close to Insadong. It is a major shopping area in Seoul has been around for hundreds of years. At one point it was an art district and still contains many art galleries. There are also antique stores, souvenir shops, and many many restaurants.
From the maps we looked at, it looked like a simple route straight off
the subway line...so of course we went the wrong way!! It turned into a
happy accident though as we came across a park that was the first
"modern" park in Korea.
I would like to say that it was a nice place to walk around and admire the pagodas, but the kids were NOT having any of it! We tried to enjoy as much as possible and still laugh.
Another fun part of having Elizabeth with us is that we can have family
pictures taken at any time. She did a fantastic job, but Hyeon su must
have been pouting the whole time because he looks like this in every
picture. It is very odd because I have SO many vacation pictures of my
family that are JUST like this. Mom taking the picture, me and Dad
smiling and my brother pouting off to the side. Ahh...such great
memories!
.
We finally made it to Insadong and immediately ran into the Dragon Candy makers. They do this whole song and dance while they make the candy. The take a solid *chunk* of honey and dip it in the rice flour and pull, stretch and twist it into 16,000 strands!!! It is a show by itself!
We had to make the obligatory stop at Starbucks. I've heard that this is the only Starbucks in the world that has the name written in the country's native language. Stacy was searching for wifi so we could look the address to the Beautiful Tea House.
We had just gotten the boys a little snack and some water to drink in Starbucks and when we turned around, we found THIS:
And I did a little happy dance!!! This little discs are called hoddeuk. They are a mix between a donut and a cinnamon sticky bun. Hot gooey bits of heaven!! We had them at a picnic once so we knew what traditional ones are supposed to taste like. I buy a box mix at the Korean market and Stacy makes some that are pretty darn tasty, but there really isn't anything like buying one fresh off the grill on the streets of Seoul. They make people do this:
We had another round after lunch!!! Speaking of lunch. Where should people go when surrounded by wonderful traditional restaurants? Why McDonalds of course!!!
What can I say? It made the little people VERY happy and Stacy & I ate bulgogi burgers!! It was actually rather tasty, much to my surprise. I'm not sure what they do differently here, but even the fries didn't taste like chemical laden bits of glop. Oops. Did that come out out loud? I hate McDonalds and go as little as possible, but this was fairly edible.
We had to have an after lunch treat. We had seen the men at this shop doing a song and dance move with ice-cream, so the boys ordered their own ice-cream. Little did they realize, but they would have to WORK for it!!!
Every time the kids would reach for the cone, the man would FLIP it out of the way. Notice how nobody is really watching in the background? It got better. As soon as they WOULD get ahold of the cone, he would pull the stick back WITH the ice cream still on it. So when they would go to eat the ice cream, there wouldn't be anything there!!
Well, my Hyeon su is a smart little thing...and GRABBED the whole stick so he could get the cone. I thought the man was going to bust out laughing at this point!! From behind me, I heard: now that is a smart kid! I was seriously about to wet myself at this point!!
I'm really not sure how long we were there for this whole song and dance but it really could not have been that long...but notice the CROWD that had gathered around us!
FINALLY!!! SUCCESS!!!
As we were walking out of the area we could hear a band of some sorts playing. We quickly found the source of the noise and got to witness a very interesting presentation. Can you see the white strings that look like they are floating in the breeze? They were attached to their HATS!!! It was amazing to watch them all sway in unison!!! Beautiful!
This is a slightly better view of one of the ribbons off of his hat. It was simply amazing to watch.
I wish I knew what kind of dance troupe this was. It kind of makes me think of shaman, but I'm really not sure. This woman was beautiful and doing a very interesting dance while she was playing the drum. I do love the shoes! They had an odd little point on the toes.
See? I'm so tired that I can only blog about the first HALF of our day! I will try to finish the other half before we head out in the morning. Time for b.e.d.
No comments:
Post a Comment