Julia comes to Seoul!

On December 15, I had a hard time sleeping because I kept waking up in the night to check the progress of flight AC61 from Toronto to Seoul because, after 326 days apart, my sister was finally coming to visit me! Unfortunately, her flight got delayed by 4 hours (which, unfortunately, is par for the course, because Julia has terrible luck with air travel), but she eventually made it in one piece! My original plan was to head to the airport to meet her straight from school, but since she got delayed so much, I went home for a few hours and went to get her around 9:30pm. We finally reunited and hopped on the airport express to get back to my apartment.

Reunited and on the airport express train!

If Julia's flight had been on time, I planned on taking her out for Korean barbecue for dinner, but we got back from the airport so late that we just ended up going to bed, because naturally I had a full day of sightseeing planned for the following day.

Our first stop was Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty. Built originally in 1395, most of the palace was destroyed during the Japanese occupation, but it has been meticulously rebuilt and restored. We did a guided tour which I really recommend, because having the context for what the buildings are is really helpful. To a layman, they all look the same. The photo above is from the Gyeonghoeru Pavilion.

Posing with the Hyangwonjeong Pavilion at Gyeongbokgung Palace, with Bukhansan mountain in the background.

After our tour, we went to the Cha Masineun Tteul traditional tea house. We love a spot with a view!

I loved that they gave me my own tea set and showed me the process, which included steeping the tea for 70 seconds and then pouring it through the tea sifter into the cooling bowl and then finally into the cup.

The tea house is in Bukchon Hanok Village (full of traditional Korean homes), which is such a picturesque area to explore in Seoul.

We then swung by Gwangjang Market, which is one of the oldest and largest traditional markets in South Korea. MaryBeth and I explored this market on a food tour, and while Jule and I weren't particularly hungry, I thought it was worth swinging by because it's such an essential Korean experience. I thought Jule would appreciate the sensory overload (which she did) and we also picked up some gangjeong, the traditional Korean version of rice krispie treats.

We then stopped by Jogyesa Temple, which, according to Wikipedia, is "the chief temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. The building dates back to the late 14th century and became the order's chief temple in 1936. It thus plays a leading role in the current state of Seon Buddhism in South Korea." I really liked these winter lanterns that they had set up outside :)

We then walked over to the Ssamzigil area to do a little bit of souvenir shopping before finally heading to Ikseondong for dinner. Ikseondong is also a hanok village but it's full of great restaurants, so we went to Chang Hwa Dang (which is so tiny that it only seats about 20 or maybe 25 people) for delicious fried dumplings. We then tried to go to Cheongsudang, a beautiful dessert café, but there was a line out the door and we didn't want to stand around in the cold. Julia arrived during a really bad cold snap that lasted the whole week, and most days the highs were in the teens in Fahrenheit (-7 to -10 in Celsius). We bagged the pretty café, got dessert to go and headed back to my apartment to watch Last Holiday.

The following day, we got a bit of a later start and headed to the southeast section of the city to explore Gangnam and the surrounding area. I had broken up our weekend so that Saturday was about historical Seoul and Sunday was about modern Seoul. Our first stop was a fancy American-style brunch that was delicious.

Fueling up for day two of sightseeing!

Our second stop was Bongeunsa Temple

Posing with the traditional Korean painted ceiling

We then crossed the street to explore the nearby COEX Mall, which houses the famous Starfield Library and was all decked out for Christmas.

Seoul is famous for its café culture, so I wanted to make sure Julia got a taste of that while she was here. There are themed cafes, animal cafes—basically any kind of café you can imagine, they have in Seoul. Our first stop was Seoulism, a café with a gorgeous view of the Lotte Tower.

Posing with the Lotte Tower in the background at Seoulism café (Visiting the Lotte Tower was our last stop later that night)

I then surprised Jule with a visit to the Peachgrey watercolor café! (Which she loved)

While we were at the watercolor café, I realized I had overlooked the fact that the passes I had pre-bought for the nearby Lotte World amusement park had to be redeemed by 6pm (The park was open until 10pm so I didn't realize the tickets had to be redeemed by a specific time). We were a 15 minute walk away and I realized this right around 5pm, shortly after arriving at the watercolor café. We figured if we finished our little paintings by 5:40 that would give us enough time to make it to redeem our passes. Naturally, this ended with me going to the wrong ticket window and actually running to the correct one at 5:59, literally as they were about to lower the gate to close for the evening. You know me, always keeping things interesting! But thank God it worked out because exploring Lotte World, the world's largest indoor amusement park, was totally worth running around and making a fool of myself.

Lotte World, the largest indoor amusement park in the world. (The ice skating rink is seasonal!)

I tried to take this photo from the top floor to give a frame of reference for how big it is but I don't think this photo does it justice.

We love carousels :)

All decked out for Christmas!

We couldn't resist posing with both sides of the castle (which is outside, in case that's not obvious).

Our last stop of the day was just across the street at the Lotte Tower, which is the tallest building in Korea and the sixth-tallest in the world. It's 123 floors and 555 meters tall (1,820 feet).

My favorite view of Seoul from the Lotte Tower

All the scratches kind of take away from it but they had a glass floor so you can see how high up you are

Selfie at the Lotte Tower

That was our final touristy stop of the day but our actual last stop was to have some famous Korean fried chicken for dinner. It's normal for Korean men to eat an entire fried chicken per person (which I absolutely do not understand for a country full of physically small and thin people), so when my sister and I tried to order a half chicken for the two of us, we were swiftly rebuffed by the lady taking our order and were forced to order a whole chicken. We left at least a third of the chicken behind, unfortunately, but at least it tasted really good!

After our marathon weekend (My phone said we walked almost 18 miles over the two days), we called it a night shortly after getting back to my apartment.

For the rest of the week, I had school during the day, so our activities together were limited to what we could do in the evening, so most of that was taking Jule to try various Korean foods for dinner.

Julia came to visit my school on Monday and we took this photo with my homeroom class (they are Korean 6-year-olds so in Western age they are 5).

Monday night we had dak galbi with cheese, which is spicy stir-fried chicken and rice

Tuesday was cheesy tonkatsu, which is breaded pork cutlet (very similar to wiener schnitzel, as pointed out by MaryBeth when she was here).

Wednesday night we went into the city center to get the fanciest facial I've ever received (it included a foot soak and even a Tempurpedic massage table). After the facial, we went to see the Christmas lanterns in Gwangwhamun square and at the Cheonggyecheon stream.

Sorry that the lighting in this photo is awful but I thought it was worth sharing anyway!

Lanterns in Gwangwhamun Square (and you can see the Gyeongbokgung palace gate in the background). No food pictures from Wednesday night because I attempted to take Julia to a bibimbap restaurant that was closed for vacation, so we ended up having bibimbap delivered to my apartment.

Thursday we finally went out for Korean barbecue and Jule quickly became a grill master.

On Friday, we had our Christmas party at school where Santa came to give the kids presents and take photos with them, and then Julia and I went out for dinner one last time after school. We went to Eataly at the main Hyundai department store in Seoul, and the Christmas decorations were next level, as you can see. Afterwards, we went out with my friends that night to our favorite neighborhood bar. Julia finally got to meet my friends and we also did a Secret Santa gift exchange, so it was a really fun night.

We packed a lot in during Julia's limited time in Seoul, especially considering I haven't detailed any of her solo activities here. While I was at school during the day, she visited the Korean War Memorial and Museum, did a day trip to the DMZ (that got rescheduled thanks to snowy weather and a car accident so she basically traveled to the DMZ two days in a row), and a traditional Korean paper lantern making class. Finally, when Saturday rolled around, it was time for our next destination during my second annual week off from school: Thailand!