A Sea of Red Devils (Part 2)

Day 3

I dozed in and out of consciousness during the Korea World Cup game. I was able to watch the 2 goals being scored, but the rest seemed like a blur to me. I didn't know if I dreamed some parts of the game or not.

Anyway, the morning of our final full day in Seoul, Jeff and I woke a bit before the others so we went to get our Starbucks fix. They have White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccinos in Seoul! This is the first I've seen of it, anyway. But OH MY GOD...Starbucks is INSANELY expensive in Korea! A Grande Frappuccino costs US$6.50!! A Tumbler costs $38!! WTF!! We still got our crack but we were shocked by the prices at the same time, considering dinner the previous night only cost us $2! Korea charges the highest prices for Starbucks I've ever seen, by far.

We also got these really yummy Korean pancake/donuty type pastries w/ anko (red bean paste) inside and they were hella good. Anyway.

We all cabbed it to Gyeongbokgung, one of the numerous palaces in the city. Apparently, this one has the largest wooden structure of any palace in Seoul. Nice. We saw something that resembled the changing of the guards when we got there. Cools. We walked around, took some pictures, and that was that. Seriously, if you put me in any palace/temple in Asia, I'd have a hard time distinguishing what country I was in. They really do all look the same to me, sadly. It was nice to see though, as Korean palaces seem to be more brightly colored? I dunno what I'm talking about. But yeah, check!

Guess where we went next? Just guess. Give up? We went to Chili's. Haha. We figured we were overloaded on Korean food the past couple of days and Chili's actually sounded really good. We cabbed it across the river near Lotte World and found our way to Chili's, a self-proclaimed "Tourist Restaurant." Sad, indeed. Anyway, remember the "big" comment? Well, the portions at Chili's were gargantuan, a lot more so than even at home!! It was like 4 meals in one! Weird, as our Japanese stomaches weren't used to this. Some of us took doggie-bags. They're so cool about that...they wrapped up everything separately, sealed our food as if it had never been eaten, and gave us extra guac! Nice.

After our enormous meal, we walked around the Lotte Department Store. It just reminded me of all the other department stores in Japan. Nothing too interesting. We then split up, and some of us went to Dongdaemun, another market that was near our hotel. There really wasn't much there; it reminded me of an enormous swap meet. We left shortly after we realized we wouldn't buy anything there. We all met up at the hotel again. Then Tim, Jeff, Sean and I went to Seoul Tower for a view of the city at dusk. We took the Nam San cable car up (the same one Sam Soon and Sam Shik rode in the drama!! Yeeeaaa!!) to the tower. The view was nice, but the smog sorta prevented a clear shot of the city. It's cool; it gave us a chance to think of dumb poses for pictures. The ride down the cable car was pretty b/c the sun had just set and buildings were sorta lit up. Sean and Tim were trying to get Jeff and I to pose like Sam Soon and Sam Shik in the drama, but we didn't end up doing it. Hehe.

The guys and I then cabbed it to Ewha Women's University area to meet up with Ann and Emily. Unfortunately, the mtg didn't work out. So instead, we went to Haagen Daaz for some YUMMY-AS chocolate fondue. OH MY GOD IT WAS AMAZING. (Pictures to come later!) After that, we ate waay too much for dinner at this one yummy place that served stuff which reminded me of dim sum! Anyway, dinner for the 4 of us cost only $6! Nice! After dinner, we walked around some more. That area was really cool to just walk around and had things to look at and hot people to drool over, so yeah. We also went for drinks even tho we shouldn't have put our stomaches thru more trauma, but oh well, that's what vacations are for. I think some of us paid the price for it tho...sad!

Day 4

We had to check out and be ready to leave the hotel at 7:30am the next morning. Baah. We were like zombies, being dragged to our last stop before the airport. They took us to this kimchi place and I thought things were overpriced. I'd rather get ripped off at the duty-free shops in the airport! I got my teachers these kimchi chocolates from the Incheon Airport and it was a hit! They were actually spicy and muy delicioso! Anyway, I got home at 6pm that night and was bloody tired. Whew...and you thought I'd never finish talking!

P.S. Pictures to come later!