Adventures of the Waylands: Weekend in Seoul

Clint had to go up to Seoul for work on Monday and Tuesday so we decided to go up as a family on Saturday and hang out. We stayed at the Dragon Hill Lodge on base. We learned one good lesson this weekend about being wise travelers. There is a bus that goes from the base in Seoul to the base here. It cost about $12 bucks for the three of us to travel. So we thought, well that will be convenient and it will drop us off relatively close to the hotel on post. What we didn't factor in was that it was 2 hours on the lurching bus! We later discovered that for a few more Won, the train was a much better ride.
Then after we got all check in we took a taxi down to the subway so we could go to the COEX mall. It is one of the largest malls in the world. It's so big that it even had an aquarium, but more about that in a minute.
Clint downloaded a subway ap on his phone and you can plan your trip. Well, as we are discovering many of the "navigation" systems don't always take you the fastest way. The GPS took Clint and his soldiers through rice paddy roads doubling his travel time. The subway ap, has us on the subway for 45 minutes when it really should have taken 20 minutes. So by the time we got to the COEX we had been traveling for almost 4 hours. :( On Monday I discovered that the train took 55 minutes from Seoul Station to Pyeontaek. So much better then 2 hours on a bus.
Once we arrived at the COEX we were starving. There was a KFC right out front so we decided that would be good. The major difference between where we live and Seoul is the crowds. The line to get food took about a half hour to get through. Then this woman was behind me and kept pushing against my back. I wanted to turn around and tell her it was too stinken hot to be that close. But figured she probably wouldn't understand me. Then something brushed against my ponytail and she made a kissing type sound. I was sure she had kissed my ponytail. Thankfully when I did turn around, she was wearing a hat. Finally we got our food and sat down to eat, 3 people and our regular big stroller at a table that was meant for 2 people. I looked over at Clark and he kept opening his moth after each bite and sucking down his orange juice. Clint took a bite of his chicken and realized just how spicy it was. All of us were so hungry we didn't really care, but poor Clark was the only one who had really spicy food. Poor kid.
As for the Aquarium it was much cooler then we expected. It looked like a small display of small fish from the front and Clint and I were a little worried as to why they charged us $15 each to get in. Then the displays started getting larger and larger. They had everything from small fish to an 8 ft crocodile, 12ft sharks, giant snapping turtles and even the little moving sidewalk that went under the overhead tank. It ended with manatee and a seal. Very impressive!

Waiting for the really long subway trip.

EEEK!!!

Ok Dad, I trust you!

This pic is for Malaka! He mentioned not seeing enough Koreans in my pics.

Moo

Yeah, I'm that person who pretends to take a picture of something to really take the picture I want. Most Koreans especially in Seoul have beautiful tastes in clothes, but thus is just eccentric...

The Aquarium had a section of every day items that they made into fishtanks.

Funky fish

Clark totally didn't freak out when the fish came up to him. He thought it was really cool and took time to observe what was happening. They were "Doctor Fish"

Piranha

Electric Eel

Almost all their tanks were open on the top and you could EASILY stick your hands in!

Albino fish

Sea turtle

Beaver

The Aquarium was great, but like most indoor areas of Korea, they don't really air condition it. Yes, it wasn't as hot and muggie as outside, but it was still warm. So by the time we got back we were literally swimming in our clothes. ICK!

Sunday we thought we'd go down to the Korean War Museum because were were hopping to find some shelter from the sweltering heat. For the last week it has been in the mid to high 90s with heat indexes that make it feel well above 100. It is the kind of heat that you instantly start to sweat the minute you walk outside or your glasses fog up. Yeah, not much fun!

Anyways, while walking toward to museum we ran into the other Captain Clint works with, so Anna joined us. It was a very short walk from post to the museum. They had tons of planes, tanks, boats, and other military vehicles outside to either walk up to or even go inside. Inside the planes was sweltering so we didn't stay inside too long.

Inside the museum they had a bodies exhibit. We decided that since the museum wasn't as cool as we would have liked, surely they would have the bodies exhibit cooler to preserve the work. WRONG. We took Clark we us being prepared to take him out if he freaked out. The opposite happened. He was very interested. At this point he is still convinced that poop is stored in his leg! So I kind of was able to show him thebv path our food takes. After the bodies exhibit we started to go through the rest of the museum but we all got too hungry and headed back into Itaewon to get lunch. Thankfully we found a Sushi restaurant with a great desire to keep their customers cool.
We ended our little vacation that night out at a Russian restaurant with the other Vets Clint works with and one other spouse. Well worth the time traveling, sitting is sweat soaked clothes and enduring the heat. Can't wait for Fall!!!