After a lovely time with family and friends in Japan, we headed to Seoul for a little time as a family of 3.
A MASSIVE thank you to Brandon Coleman (a dear friend from high school and Seoul expert) who gave us some tips and tricks for our time in Seoul. We loved your city and can’t wait to see more of it!
Happy Hour while baby boy had a sleep!
After Conrad had a snooze, we headed out to a market for our first glimpse of the local food scene. We were pretty full from a late lunch and pretty tired from our travels, so we didn’t eat much. But we couldn’t resist a taste of a few things.
Banana stuffed puff pastry. Our little foodie 🙂
Yeah, we were pretty tired by this point.
The next morning, we struck out early to see some of Seoul’s cultural sights.
Bukchon Hanok Village
Changdeokgung (창덕궁) Palace
Sleeping baby for palace exploration?!? Score!
Stunning architectural details
Gorgeous lines
Checking out the silk worms in the Secret Garden
Mama Conrad selfie!
This is what is currently known as a “Conrad Kiss”
We love exploring together 🙂
Next, a lunch of dumplings and noodles!
Korean Dumplings
Conrad got in on the action
After an afternoon nap, we went back out to find, you guess it, more food!
Traditional Korean dress for sale/rental at the market
Mung Bean Pancakes (Bindaetteok 빈대떡) fried fresh
So much to take in!
One of the aunties enticing Conrad with what I think was some kind of cabbage
Bibimbap
Hand cut Noodles
Cooling down our freshly fried donut. Conrad LOVED these.
We ended our evening with a stroll down Seoul’s answer to NYC’s High Line: Seoullo.
An old highway repurposed
Beautiful views
Having a ball!
Our hotel behind one of the city gates (we’ve loved Fraser Place ever since our time in KL)
The next morning, we set out to explore a few more Seoul highlights.
Hurry with the coffee, Mom and Dad. I’m ready to explore!
Next stop: Insadong!
Upon arriving in Insadong (an area famous for art and shopping), we happened upon a multi-story shop that specialized in everything green tea.
Green Tea EVERYTHING
Conrad smelling one of the loose leaf green teas on offer.
Next, we found a lunch spot where we could sample Banchan (반찬), the collection of side dishes typically served with Korea cooked rice.
So many side dishes!
That night, we opted for a truly Korean experience: a baseball game! The Lotte Giants played the LG Twins and the spectacle was truly something to behold. The crowd was VERY into the game, singing each batters’ theme song the entire time he was at bat. There were cheerleaders, fireworks, t-shirt cannons. It seemed more like an American NFL Game than a baseball game!
City Baby on the Seoul Metro
Lotte Giants vs. LG Twins
We got one order of fried chicken. It came with 20 pieces.
First baseball game as a family of 3!
This little guy LOVED it!
The next morning, we boarded a plane in Seoul bound for home. Unfortunately, Conrad and I BOTH ended up with some sort of stomach virus (it hit me literally as we were getting off the plane), so we had an unexpected night in Detroit to rest and recover. We did eventually make it home and through jet lag. John is such a trooper!
Playing at the airport before the 13 hour flight
Snoozing baby–happy Mama!
Stomach viruses are the pits!
Seoul reminded us of Singapore in a lot of ways and made us miss it. A very developed, modern Asian city with obvious pride in its history, but with a drive for innovation and development we find to be unique to the region. The people were kind to us and enchanted by Conrad (he was definitely the main attraction, haha) and we look forward to spending more time here in the future.
As always, thanks for reading!
John and CB's Most Excellent Adventure 