Day 5: Traditional Korean lunch, Namdaemun Market, and North Seoul Tower

Today we both woke up at 3:30am. Casey never fell back asleep and I ended up falling back asleep for maybe an hour. Our bodies still haven't adjusted to the time change. No worries though...I'm sure we will get accustomed to it when it's time to leave Friday. 

After Casey grabbed us some coffee from W coffee, where he got his typical mocha and I tried a 7 grain latte (rice crispies + latte) we then decided to venture out around 8:30. We thought we would try and find an Emart or a Home Plus, which is suppose to be like a target or Walmart. However, stores don't really get going until 10/11 here so there was basically NOTHING open other than coffee shops and breakfast joints. We ended up grabbing some donuts and just walking around Gangnam exploring for about 4.5 miles. I got a pedicure and by the time we finished up there it was time to meet Jason for lunch. 

So......my Uncle Alex Azar arranged this meeting with Jason. My uncle formerly worked for Dako Corporation and Jason is the Country Manager for Dako Korea. 

He came to pick us up from the Hotel at 12:30 and drove us to a traditional Korean restaurant called Korean Grill Dining. 

This place was incredible. It was exactly what I think of when I think of a traditional meal. The walls are bamboo, each party sits in their own room, you take your shoes off before you go into your room, and then you sit in the floor to eat. He did all the ordering for us, which was wonderful because we had no idea what any of the stuff on the menu was. 

Everything is served family style. We started with some tea, kimchi soup, and a vegetable rice. Then, we ate some salad, some lightly friend eggplant, a seaweed ricecake dish, and a seasame soup (tasted like cream of mushroom almost). Then we ate a jicama slaw, another type of kimchi, and a pumpkin salad. Next, the main dish was heated over the warm coals in the center of the table. It was kind of like a beef stew. It had beef, rice cake, pumpkin chucks, onion, and peppers and it was all marinated in a soy sauce. Sounds strange, but it was delicious. Just when we thought we were almost done eating, more food came out. This time it was purple rice, a tofu soup, some other types of kimchi, and oysters (those were the only thing I wasn't a fan of....they had been marinated for 3 months and they were STRONG). I hope Jason didn't see the look of disgust on my face. Lastly, we were served a sweet plum tea as dessert. We were stuffed. What a neat meal! I know some of the stuff sounds very strange but it was all very very good (with the exception of the oysters) and I know this will go down as our favorite meal and an experience we will never forget. Jason was so incredibly kind. He took time out of his day to come and get us from our hotel, drove us to a very nice restaurant, paid for our meal, gave us a travel guide and some great advice about the city, and gave us several gifts. So very thoughtful. Thankfully, I had read up on Korean culture and thought he might bring us a gift so I brought him a gift as well--awkward moment averted. I still feel so grateful to him and that I should send him something else because he gave us such an incredible experience. Jason, thank you, thank you, thank you. And a big thanks to my Uncle A for hooking us up!!! 

After about 15 courses we headed back to the hotel for a few minutes then headed back out to explore. Jason recommended we check out Nangdanam market so we hopped on the subway and headed that way. Well, actually we bought tickets for the subway and just before stepping onto the subway we realized we were on the right track number but we were about to head south when we needed to go north. So 2 tickets later we figured out what we did wrong and hopped on the right subway. When I say subway most people think of fairly dirty subways like the ones you see in larger cities in the states. Not the case at all in Korea. There is actually a glass wall and door like the ones you see on trams for airports back home. And it was very clean. For that matter, everything here is spotless. To give you an idea, we saw a guy using a vacuum in a parking garage and another person using a dust mop on the front steps of a giant department store. 

Anyway, about 40 minutes after getting on the subway we found our way to the market. It's basically like NYC's canal street and a flea market had a very big baby. After walking aimlessly for a while we found a security guard who played a quick game of charades with us. Thankfully, he's good at charades because he was able to understand that I wanted to find the children's clothes. He pointed us in the right direction. The best way I can describe it is to say it was like they had taken every swanky kids clothing boutique (that Casey hates) ever made and had them set up their stores like The Shed over on the south side but with only 7 foot ceilings and about 1000 square feet. It was awesome! I think there were about 100 stores. 

Unfortunately, we arrived at 4:55 pm and they closed promptly at 5:00. Epic fail--Casey was crushed. The other problem was these weren't exactly bargains. Given the flea market set up we were expecting flea market prices. Not the case. We also expected some haggling. Also, not the case. One lady wanted $15 for a pair of sweat pants for Charlie. I offered $10. She countered with $14.50 and that was the lowest she was gonna go--"no pants for you"!

So after this deflating experience we headed across the street to Shinsegae Department Store. It looked like just another giant building from the outside but it was unbelievable inside. It had by far the fanciest food court I've ever seen. 

We stopped there for another caffeine fix then met up with our Tennessee friends, who are also here to meet their little girl, at the North Seoul Tower. It's sort of like their version of Seattle's Space Needle set on top of a mountain. BEST VIEW OF A CITY EVER! The pics on here are pretty cool but still doesn't do the views justice. It was mind blowing to see how vast this city really is. As amazing as it was, it makes me appreciate the small town and backyard I have that much more. 

After snapping some pics we hopped in a taxi and headed for some non Asian food. We found a pizza place on tripadvisor then held our phone up for the taxi driver to see. After pointing and grunting at our phone for a few minutes he figured out the address and took us to NYC Brick Oven Pizzeria. 

The pizza was awesome. An hour later we shut the place down (I know, we're party animals--I think it was 10pm). After a long day and about 10 miles of walking according to the Fitbit we headed back to our room for some much needed shuteye. 

Looking forward to seeing our little girl again tomorrow. We get to visit with her again at SWS at 11AM (6PM Paducah time). More fun to come...