So, as many of you know we took a family vacation to Korea. In the best of stereotypical veins I have decided to inflict the modern-day equivalent of a vacation slideshow to explain how awesome this trip was. Fortunately for you, you can breeze on through these pics or ignore the thread all together instead of sitting politely and quietly in our living room praying for death while I drone on and on about the minutiae of each picture. So, without further adieu, our trip: We left the house on the morning of May 23rd. We loaded most of our earthly belongings in two LARGE suitcases and 2 carry-ons. I would suggest to all parties that you use more suitcases and smaller ones. Even with charges for extra pieces you will end up paying less because we hit weight restrictions both in the US and in Korea on our way home. Once we got to the airport the kids started to get really excited. Sora hadn't flown on a plane in recent memory and Deuce had never flown so it was really exciting for both of them. They would scream "Plane! Plane!" every time they saw one. They still do. One of the benefits of having kids is that flight attendants and pilots like to lavish attention on them. Until this point in my life I have never been able to step foot in the cockpit of an airplane. Both my kids have not only gotten to do that but they also got to sit in the pilot's seat and push buttons in the plane. I am jealous. Once we were into our seats the kids were pretty good. I was afraid that they'd get bored or fidgety but even on the long trans-Pacific flights they were really good. Here we all are seated and ready for our first flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco. Note: I HATE SFO. I will never fly through that ****ing airport unless I have no choice. It's put together by morans and the TSA guys there are exceptionally nit-picky. I understand the need for security but there is security and there is common sense. *******es, the lot of them. Trans-Pacific flights that put you 15 hours off your body clock are a bit exhausting. All of us were pretty wiped out by the time we got to Korea. Fortunately Grandma and Grandpa Lee have a VERY comfortable couch. Once we got settles in Korea we began to meet ALL the relatives on the Korean side. One of Jenn's primary purposes in going was to show off our kids to the great grandparents. Our kids were a BIG hit because unlike most Korean kids they were really well-behaved and respectful. (note: This is a cultural thing. Little Korean kids are left to run around like crazy because once they get into school they are beaten into submission by their teachers (literally and figuratively). Korean parents seem to adopt an attitude of 'let them play while they can' because they know what kind of hell their kids are in for during their school-years.) Even though our kids only spoke a modicum of Korean the family all thought they were wonderful. The old guy in the foreground is cool as ****. He is Jenn's uncle and he spent the afternoon mocking my poor speaking skills and teasing my daughter. I liked him a lot. Great Grandpa (in the background) isn't really with it so much. Sora was an absolute angel, though, and would randomly walk up to him and give him big hugs. He would just get this wistful look on his face and it made me kind of tear up. Yeah... I'm a big softie. This is the other side of the family. The old woman is the great-grandma on the other side and she is in her late 80's. She's as sharp as a tack and a bit brusque but she's pretty awesome, too. In the second picture you can see her sitting down with the kids and playing cars with them. Aside from meeting with the family we did a LOT of sight-seeing. We took the bus into Seoul almost every day and some days more than once. One of the first things you notice in Korea is that high-rises are EVERYWHERE. Most people in Seoul live in 18-30 story apartment complexes. They're pretty nice and I learned to love life in the high-rise. If I ever live there I'm going to live in one and buy the biggest set of macro-binoculars I can. This picture doesn't do justice to the sheer number of these apartments. This picture was taken on the road to Seoul in one of the smaller suburbs. Once you get into the city there are MANY more. We did a lot of sight-seeing and I got to revisit some of my favorite haunts. I also got to hunt for some of those 'only-in-Korea' kinds of things that make me giggle. The first shot is of Jenn and I in front of one of the few bamboo stands in Korea. Bamboo doesn't grow naturally there. This one is right behind a small parking lot in the middle of Seoul. There were a bunch of Buddhist monks standing around and one offered to take a picture of Jenn and I. I didn't see as much rice as I'd hoped. Last time I was there I saw a LOT of really spectacular rice but this time I only caught a glimpse every now and then. Fortunately I ran into some great Engrish rice. It was a Hyundai Accent re-painted in Nismo Orange. It had a bunch of stickers and a fart can but my favorite sticker was this one: It made me think of tearing around the streets of Denver. I took about 6 shots of this car and I'm pretty sure the owner was standing next to the car while I was taking shots. Unfortunately he didn't want to bother the big white guy with the camera and then my wife ran off before I could ask any questions. What was lacking in automotive rice was made up for by the presence of lots of natural rice. In fact there are stores that specialize in selling all forms of the grain. Apparently what Koreans lack in imagination they make up for in volume. I present to you: The Rice Gallery. Koreans have an odd sense of what is a good name for a shop. This place is called 'Kinki Robot' and I saw at least 3 different stores in Seoul. They sell accessories for hair but I never saw anything robotic. This shirt was NOT in the Kinki Robot store but I had to take a picture. I almost bought it for Jenn but... I didn't. I really wish I had since it was only about $5. Another example of Engrish gone wild was this store: Do you know what they sell there? Korea is pretty modern. Cell phone service is phenomenal and there is pretty much no consumer electronics product you cannot buy. However in some ways they still stick to their traditions. One morning Jenn and I headed into Seoul. The previous evenings' meal was coming back to haunt me in a bad way and I needed to find the proper facilities, NOW. The bus dropped us off next to an older Subway station so I headed on down the stairs. I entered the bathroom but all of the Western-style commodes were locked. (note: Unlike 5 years ago most Korean toilets are now Western-style but...) So I found the cleanest 'traditional' toilet I could and opened the door... Like I said, the cleanest I could find. (obligatory foot pic for the denizens of MNSubaru has been included)
I found a Hooter's in Korea. I did not go inside because I knew I would be disappointed. Here is a shot of the exterior, though. Koreans are REALLY proud of the spiciness of their food. Red Pepper is in damn near every traditional dish and Kimchi (fermented cabbage covered in red-pepper powder) is served with every meal. However I believe that they went too far. Here is Kimchi chocolate and Red-pepper Chocolate. Wrong. Just wrong. I love the subway system in Seoul. It's SO easy to get around. However apparently even some Koreans can't figure it out. The Seoul city planners came up with a brilliant solution: give them a place of their own. Korea is a peninsula. Therefore there is a LOT of seafood available there. Since neither of my kids had ever seen the ocean and I love seafood we made a trip out to the coast. Sure, you can find seafood in Seoul. It's in almost every supermarket and looks like this: However I was hoping to find something more akin to this: Deuce loved the fish market. He picked up almost everything that wriggled including an octopus. He almost got his fingers bitten off by a larger crab before the lady who ran the stall clipped the pincers. Here he is in absolute wonder over a pail of little crabs. He got to eat some of teh buggers later and liked that, too: After checking out the market we picked out some fresh clams and had a most excellent lunch. In good Korean style we also are fresh peppers covered in red-pepper sauce. My son loved it. The other thing we did was meet a bunch of my wife's friends from college and high school. Koreans are a bit odd about school-mates. My wife hadn't seen her friend in ten years. It turns out that she is a dentist and really busy but we met her in her office. Even though it had been a long time since they'd last spoken or seen each other they talked for about an hour. Then the dentist cleaned our teeth for free. Weird. Really, really weird. Hi, nice to see you again. My your teeth are filthy. Let me fix that. And your husband, too! My wife grew up amongst some more affluent types. One night we went out to meet her (single) friend Sujong. We met her at the Galleria (THE place to shop for those with more money than sense). It started to get a little cool so Sujong ran inside to pick up the cardigan she's wearing in the picture. It cost more than my watch. While we were eating at a trendy little restaurant she found out that I was interested in cars. She's been meaning to get one and wanted my opinion on Bentleys. She was serious. Like I said, she's single. I'll start the bidding for her phone number at $500. After dinner we went to a Jazz Club. There I smoked Cuban cigars and drank cognac. Our table was right over the stage and the two bands we heard were actually very good. At one point a guy got up and played some Jazz Flute. He was no Ron Burgundy but he was good. Another night Jenn and I went out and met her friend who works as a translator. She was super cool and had a British accent when she spoke Korean. We got good and royally drunk. Here is a picture of her and my wife. Neither are very sober. Her friend is the one on the left. She is also single. Most of my wife's friends were cool. I found out that if I spoke Korean (as poorly as I do) that they were much less standoff-ish than I'd previously experienced. One of the fun things about Korea was bringing the kids out. Since my kids are half-Asian they attracted a bit of attention. Last time I was there I experienced a bit of Xenophobia and bigotry. Apparently five years and a World Cup have helped Koreans get over that. At no point in our vacation did I get any sort of negative reaction to my kids. In fact everywhere we went they were treated like celebrities. Fish markets, parks, malls, subways, buses, hair stylists - everywhere we went my kids were complimented, picked up, shown off and instantly befriended by the Korean kids. Here are some obligatory shots of my kids: We we're out shopping for clothes and the owner of the shop had her daughters playing in the back of the store. Sora asked if she could go play and 15 minutes later they were close friends despite the lack of a common language. My son was a sensational hit with everyone. On more than one occasion he was picked up by a Korean woman and shown off to everyone around. This was a bit disconcerting to me, initially, but there was never any ill intent and the words, "He's just like a little doll' was repeated over and over again. Middle school girls were especially fond of our kids. We were at the big palace in Seoul and hordes of school-uniform clad little girls crowded around us taking pictures with our kids. Odd? Yes. Enjoyable? Definitely. One day we decided that the kids needed to get their hair cut. We took them to one of the local hair places and had it done. Wow. It's half the price of the places around here and we were treated really well. Sora has always been kind of a tomboy but I think that may be done. She absolutely loved getting her hair curled and dolled up. Deuce was the epitome of a gentleman and one of the stylists decided she must find a foreign husband. We took the kids to the park and they really enjoyed it. However the play equipment wasn't the best part. Sora was hell-bent on climbing as high as she could on the hills and crawling through the bushes. Both of them found great enjoyment just playing in the smaller trees: As with all vacations this one had to come to an end. On June 8th we boarded the bus and headed for home. Once we got to the airport we got our tickets and got on board the plane. The kids were very reluctant to leave Korea and so were Jenn and I. More and more I think about my future options in the Army the more I think about making my last three years after a Germany a Korean tour. However we got on the plane and Seoul, we stopped in Japan and had some great airport Udon and then waited for our final flight home. Here we heard more cries of, "Plane! Daddy, PLANE!" Now we are home. The kids are re-adjusted to our time zone and back in school. All in all it was a fantastic vacation. None of us wanted to leave and I never really missed home. I really consider Korea my second home and have very few reservations about possibly moving there for the long term. I hope you all enjoyed my little slideshow. If anyone is planning to go to Korea for a vacation feel free to hit me up for ideas on where to go and what to see.
korea is ftw! thanks for sharing greg. I have only been there once - about 7 years ago. i would really like to go back very soon before airfare reaches the price of a new car
dude, more pictures, more more pictures, i always dreamed about going to korean.... korean dramas ftl... for the love
that was a good read..looks like a blast, and you do have 2 very cute kids so i can see why they were well received.
Big ups to you. I'm Korean and I know that your wifes family is probably quite wealthy. The pictures show a lot of fancy places. Hope you tried all the "interesting" foods.
Just a bit different from the time I was there in 76, yes thats 1976! I would love to go back and see the progress, what a great experience for the kids. I am sure you will be back there soon. Thanks for the great pics and letting us get to know you and your family a bit better.
Greg-You go MIA and you return back with some pictures of some real food and some beautiful girls, I don't know if I buy your story. Awsome trip bro! You have a very nice looking family, looks like we are closer than we look. LOL
Just a second. The wife stole the camera again. I didn't get a full-on shot of the scooter but here is my wife and daughter. It's pretty obvious where they are. Also, for all you connoisseurs of natural methods of calming yourself: You are not alone. (Her shirt reads: I love herb)
Yeah that looked sweet. I wish i could get out of the counrty more and see what the rest of this world has to offer. Glad you had fun! Looked like you had good time from all the different pics!
