A Trip to Seoul

For our 5 day summer vacation, we decided to make a trip up to Seoul. We've been working 13 hour days teaching summer school, so we wanted a relaxing vacation without any sightseeing and endless walking that comes with going to a different country. We spent most of our days shopping, getting massages, eating great food, and hanging out with friends that came to Seoul too.

Ahhhhh, Frank bought me a rose!

PJ Hotel: The hotel we stayed in was really nice. The location was downtown and only about a 10 minute walk to get to Myeong-dong, a popular shopping district.

A view of Seoul from our hotel balcony

A Day in Insadong: This is a popular area to buy traditional Korean crafts and souvenirs. We spent a day here with our friend's Ramin and Tahereh.

Korean masks

Ramin and Tahereh were interviewed by a local TV show about being foreigners in Korea!

Lunch in Insadong: We ate lunch at a restaurant that made the biggest dumplings we'd ever seen! Each dumpling was about the size of a fist or bigger.

The dumplings were so big that they broke every time we tried to pick them up!

We also had some spicy noodle and dumpling soup that was cooked at our table.

Frank cooking the soup.

People here are so creative...check out the cute onion/egg flower we found floating in the soup.

Tahereh and Ramin

We couldn't turn down the dollar ice cream cones!

Mexican Restaurant: We were in heaven at this Mexican restaurant since we haven't had Mexican food in the 8 months that we've been in Korea. They even had a live Mexican band!

Leon, Ramin, Dan, Frank, Mel, Stella, and Ben

Frank and Marissa

Leon, Dan, and Stella