Day 4 Spring Break Scouts

For Day 4, Spencer had a WEBLOS hike to Seoul Tower, so I went along. Where we parked, I found the astrolab on the back of the 10,000 won bill. Now I need a picture at King Sejong's grave and I can cross off the 10K and start working on the other bills.

We hiked (climbed stairs) all the way to the top and there was a performance of the guards up there. They march and pose for pictures and talk about their smoke signals they used to keep Korea safe from invasion. We went to Seoul Tower and saw the Teddy Bear Museum there as well. That's something Julie will have to see soon. Then we hiked down and I talked to the guys from work about a baseball game, so we went to Jamsil Stadium (right next to Olympic Stadium) and watched LG take on the Lotte team from Busan. LG is the "Pride of Seoul". But their games aren't very relaxing, because they shout and cheer the whole time. It's not like the States where you sit and watch the game, and cheer when something happens. These people are lively. And just like the last time we went to a game, they handed out sparklers again. Who gives a kid a 1200 degree burning hunk of metal? Oh well, we kept and eye on them. Medical care is cheap here. We got home late again, and had run the kids until they dropped. They didn't fight us on going to bed that night as well.

Day 3 Spring Break EVERLAND

It was some holiday (of course) when we went to the Korean version of Disneyland. They didn't rip off any characters, and the place is set up really nice. The thing that killed me was how crowded it was there, but of course I picked a day a bunch of people also had the day off. So the lines were forever long. The weather was perfect at 72 degrees. We did the kiddie roller coasters and some other rides, and we did the safari where you sit in a bus and there's bears the driver throws cookies at- here's one that stood up to get more food, and there was a liger along with the lions and tigers there.

We enjoyed the fireworks and food there that wasn't all the expensive. But Julie and I wanted to ride this huge roller coaster, but the wait was too long and we couldn't leave the kids alone. It was also a long drive out there (I should have taken that hint), but we got home in 35 minutes!

We spent about $175 on the whole thing, so not too bad.

Day 2 Spring Break

Tuesday we went on a ferry ride on the Han River. The park along the entire riverfront is called Hangang Park and there's a few ferries along the way that can take you up and down the river. Most are just tourist rides these days, since the subway and bus are faster ways to get around, but the city being cut in half by the river makes it harder to get around in rush hour.

It was a little more money than I thought it would be to ride the ferry and they didn't really go too far, but it's a touristy thing anyway.

We walked along the area of town that is Yeouido and went to the Cherry Blossom Festival at the National Assembly. There's 1,400 trees planted in the area. It was really pretty there and the whole family was tired of walking by the time we got through.

Where have you been?!? Spring Break Day 1

One word- Facebook. It's tough to keep a blog and have that compete with facebook. It's like a brick oven compared to a microwave oven. Instant internet gratification versus real archiving and in-depth information. Ok, so I'm back. But only because Spring Break meant we were out and about, because who wants to read about us going to school and work every day.

Monday of Spring Break the kids had all their doctor's appointments and then we went to Building 63. It has 63 floors and is the tallest building in Korea. I'm sure there's nothing in N Korea that has 63 floors. We saw the aquarium, the I-MAX show (had to deprogram the kids from the junk sciences of ecology gone too far and evolution) and then we saw Seoul from the top floor of the building. It was a lot of fun for the kids and unfortunately the air was too hazy from the Hwang Sa (Yellow Sand) to see very far. It's nice to see the area from up there. I also went to Dae Jeon Motors in NW Seoul and got an oil change on the bike and got it deep cleaned for next to nothing. It's going to be hard to leave Korea and have to pay a lot of money to get the Harley fixed.

We found that the area 63 and the National Assembly are in is really hard to get to from our area of Ichon (just across the river) on the subway. We either had to ride it north for 30 minutes and then transfer to another line and go back south to Yeouido. We found it's faster to ride the bus to the bridge and either walk across it or hop another bus. We ended up walking across the bridge and catching the 0015 bus to the apartment. It was a mile or so across the Wonhyo Bridge and we wanted to wear down the kids and get a route to go back there to look at Cherry Blossoms on Tuesday. Day 1 was a success.