Day #2

Last night, we ended up in bed fairly early (by 7:30 or so) so we were awake around 6ish.  This is the best time to talk to family as it is the middle of the afternoon the day before so we face timed with the kids when we got up.  They had a lot to say and seemed to be doing really well.  They are with YaYa and Bbob and they say they have slept very well (which for Z is a feat!).  They talked a million miles a minute for several minutes and then they were done :-).  Ian has big plans to learn to ride his bike with no training wheels while he is with Bbob so that is their plan for tomorrow.  Today, we had plans of meeting up with an acquaintance of my sister in law from college.  Ironically, she is here teaching English to school aged kids as an after school program and preparing to start school here in March.  What a blessing to be able to walk around for a little while with someone who knows the language and knows how to get around.  She actually lives fairly close to where we are staying, so she came over and met us here.  She took us over to the area of the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is the grandest of the palaces.  We walked through the palace all the way to the back.  The detail on the buildings was gorgeous!

 Today was a lot colder than the previous day, the wind was blowing more, but there was no use sitting in the room!  After walking around the palace for a while, we went a couple of streets down to a little market area.  While walking to this area, we passed one of the hotels has been an option for our second trip.  Knowing the area this hotel was in, helped make our decision of really wanting to try to get this one for our return trip.  We got to the Insadong market and were very excited at the possibilities of things to take home! Here are a couple of not very good pictures of the market. 

 We didn't want Julie to waste her day walking through shops with us, so we went ahead and got some lunch so she could be on her way.  She took us into a Korean restaurant and helped me order something I might like.  I ordered bulgolgi for me, which was VERY good and we ordered some Korean ribs for Kendon which was essentially a hamburger patty with some type of barbecue sauce on it.  It was actually really good too and he ate it!  After lunch, Julie pointed us in the direction of the subway station to get us back to our hotel and we spent the afternoon shopping.  We didn't buy much on this trip- just got an idea of what our options were and decided to go back and talk about what we needed for who before just buying.  Kendon found his favorite way to eat ice cream here!  That cone is full of ice cream and in his words, "the cone doesn't get soggy like our cones!"

  After the market we decided to make the extra long subway trek out to Olympic Park. 

  When we finally found our way out there, there was a concert going on and some type of mens meeting in another building so there were people everywhere!  We were looking for the main gate with the Olympic ring symbol to get a picture of but we never found it.  We did however find a foot acupressure track!!??!!  Kendon said that was a broken ankle waiting to happen!

By this point, it was 5 PM and were exhausted!  We found Pizza hut on the way home and got pizza for the room.  It was a cold day, but a very good day.  We got to see several things that was on our list to see.