Korea Day 11: The National Museum of Korea and N Seoul Tower

The National Museum of Korea

The architecture of the museum was impressive.  I'll post some pictures below, otherwise, it was about the same as any museum. The focus seemed to be on historical artifacts and calligraphy.  A lot of school children were there on field trips.

N Seoul Tower

Seoul tower is situated on top of a large hill in the middle-ish of Seoul. We got off at the Myung-dong subway stop and then followed instructions given on Korea's tourism website.  The instructions made it sound like we were climbing Mt. Everest.  There were like 10 instructions to follow when really all they had to say was "follow the road up the side of the hill and look for the cable car station".

You get to the cable car station and pay a fee to ride up to the base of the actual tower.  Then you get to the base of the tower and get to pay another fee to go up to the top to the 360 degree view.  Luckily there are some things to keep you occupied if you don't want to pay the fee to go to the top.  We walked around the base station which gives you a mediocre view of the surrounding area.  They have walls up around the edge of the best viewing areas so...they somewhat impede your views.  A couple of restaurants are also present, we ate at one of them.

We got a warning that it would be about an hour until we would be able to go up to the top of the tower so we walked around the gift shop and took our time at dinner.  Once our time rolled around we walked into the building where the elevator was, skipped the obligatory tourist photo station, and hopped in the elevators.  They were VERY fast, only a couple of seconds and *poof*, you were at the top.  There was an entertaining video projected on the ceiling of the elevator showing you blasting off into space.
Without further delay...here are the pictures (credit my friend's D-SLR):

There were a lot of couples at the Tower that evening. Just like everywhere else we went in Seoul...haha

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Korea Day 10: Lotte and visiting the office

In the morning, my friend and I decided to pay a visit to my local office to share a cup of coffee and talk about our trip so far.  We headed downtown and easily found our way to the office high-rise.  We sat and chatted around Korea.  They treated us to lunch, see the pictures below!

Banchan and Veggies

The Spread

The Spread

Doenjang

Kimchi Jigae

Naengmyun

After lunch we hit up the LOTTE department store...

The LOTTE Department store in downtown Seoul is ginormous.  There are actually three different buildings that make up "Lotte Town".  There is the Main Hall of LOTTE Department Store (14 floors, 3 basements), AVENUEL (Premium brands, 10 floors, 3 basements), and LOTTE young plaza (Youth Fashion, 7 floors, 1 basement).  A grand total of 31 floors and 7 basements, granted some of the basements are parking but still...huge is an understatement.

The images of USA department stores like Macy's, Nordstorm, and Sears may come to mind initially.  This is sort of what you would expect in Korea.  However, in Korea it seemed the actually floors of the store did not extend outwards as far as American department stores.  They had many floors instead of a few floors with a lot of square footage (or square meters).

Some floors in LOTTE would only feature one main brand or one style (i.e. Men's Outdoor, Young Casual, Watches & Jewelry).

My friend and I went to LOTTE for really only one store.  It wasn't even a Korean brand...it's Japanese.  The brand is MUJI and they make some pretty cool, simple but elegant things for the home and office.

After making our purchases (mainly notebooks) in the MUJI section, we wandered around the 'young plaza' building until we had had our fill of fashion.  In general, the merchandise was not cheap.  The prices were very similar to prices in American department stores.

I can't remember if we did anything eventful that evening...probably not :)

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Korea Day 9: The Afternoon at Cheongyecheon Stream in Seoul

After getting back to the hotel from the air show, my friend and I decided to head downtown.  We ended up walking down to Cheongyecheon Stream.  This stream is located below street level and was made into a public park space.  The streams runs down the middle and it is bordered by paths on either side.  There were stepping stones between the paths crossing the stream.  It seemed perfectly acceptable to use these to cross.  The only other points to cross were stairs leading to street level bridges which were much more infrequent.

The stream seemed like a popular place to take a mid-afternoon stroll with your sweetheart.  There were a lot of couples hanging out that afternoon.  Some were walking the stream, others had set up small picnics on the stone banks. Many were just holding hands and enjoying the beautiful weather.  Other groups of people included students that had just gotten out of school as well as whole families.

When I go back to Seoul, I'd like to walk the whole stream length.  I think when we were there we picked it up somewhere in the middle and then ended a little bit before its official end.  

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Korea Day 1-9: Seoul Air Show

The main reason I went to Korea was for work.  I won't bore you with all the details but I will show you some pictures!

Korea Day 0: 14 Hours of Flying...err...Eating

Once you have tasted business class or higher, there is no way you would want to fly coach EVER again.  From the shorter check-in lines to the air port lounges...along with a much more comfortable seat and excellent service in the cabin...why coach ever again?  Oh that's right, each seat is like 5x more expensive...anyway...I got to experience this little slice of travel heaven on my journey to Korea. 

After a very long ride to the airport (traffic, rain, etc) I got checked in and headed through security to enjoy the lounge for about an hour.  Here is a picture:

They had a couple sandwich options, many drinks, and other snacks.  There was also free Wi-Fi.  The lounge was for a couple of the SkyTeam Airline Members (Air France and Korean Air had reps inside), so I heard anywhere from 2-4 different languages during my brief time in the lounge.

Next was boarding...I wonder how one qualifies for the Morning Calm...

After boarding we all got settled in and they started to distribute these little toiletry bags (tooth brush, tooth paste, lotion, etc:

 

When we reached cruising altitude, the eating began and hardly stopped throughout the flight. Besides two 3 course meals, there were drinks coming around and a couple snacks here and there.  Here are some pictures!

In general, the plane ride was uneventful, we got to Korea, went through passport control and customs, grabbed our bags and got in our car to get to the hotel.  Below are my pictures of my home for 11 nights, enjoy!

Standing shower and big ol' tub, two people can bath at the same time! 

I'll try and clean up these posts when I have some more free time.  That's all for now, stay tuned for more!

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Arizona and Some Notes on Language

I recently returned from a trip to Arizona for work.  It's the first time to Arizona that I remember, I think I might have visited when I was little.  Anyway, I wasn't really sure what to expect other than it being hot.  I didn't have much time to explore the state of Arizona.  I did view the mountain like formations in the background of my hotel outside of the Tucson airport.

I was very surprised by the size of my hotel room.  It very large for just one person. It could have easily had three queen beds along the wall.  It was extra wide as well.  Maybe it's because I'm a Gold Member of the rewards program...

I knew I would probably find many Spanish speakers in Arizona...and Arizona pulled through. I would say more than 50% of the Arizonians I interacted with spoke Spanish.  I could pick out a few phrases as I took Spanish all through middle and high school.

A lot of times I wish I was bilingual...with any language other than my native English.  I'm probably like 1.25 lingual...I know some Spanish and am trying to pick up Korean.  I've had exposure to French and Flemish as well growing up.  When I hear a foreign language I'm eager to listen and learn.  I find it amazing so many languages exist; that there are hundreds of ways to identify the same object, to greet someone, to ask for something to eat.

I have one small trip coming up soon and then it's off to the motherland.

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