Children's Grand Park and Insadong

     Tuesday morning we actually woke up at an-almost-normal-time, ate breakfast downstairs and then went exploring. Jacob and I took Lily to the Children's Grand Park in Seoul. It was a straight shot down the Purple Subway (line 5) to the Achasan station. 

Digression on the train - it's a little overwhelming at first but the underground subway system is really not very hard to navigate! There's a super helpful app that tells you how far away the next train is and gives you a map with English names (as opposed to Hangul, the Korean alphabet). There are kiosk stations with English instructions and a 30 min ride for 2 people is less than $2.50!!!! Some stations are very busy and hundreds of people just flood through without any regard for the crowds around them, but overall we have really enjoyed riding the train. 

     Anyways, we took the train to this amazing park. Take a look HERE. It's a theme park complex stretching over 130 acres including hills, gardens, fountains, a Zoo, playgrounds, botanical gardens, amusement park with rides, amphitheater, children's museum, hiking trails, exercise stations, marine animal house, fairy land, statues, water play area, and more!!! We were there for over 3 hours and maybe saw 1/3 of it. BEST OF ALL ----- it's FREE!!!!!! Awesome, right? We need to develop something like this in NM, just sayin'. You do have to pay for individual things like the rides, snacks, stroller rental and shows. But it was amazing and Lily loved it. I'd definitely recommend this place for any fabmilies traveling to Seoul!           

mushroom house bathrooms lol

The afternoon/evening was spent exploring Insadong, the area of the city around our hotel in Central Seoul. There are a ton of street vendors & little shops selling coin purses, custom stamps, calligraphy brushes, facial masques, socks, jewelry, dishes, snacks and fans. Our friend Amanda met up with us and we went to a little hole-in-the-wall Korean BBQ place for dinner called Cha Iyagi. Very different than the American versions lol! The rice was steamed in large pieces of carved out bamboo about the size of a coffee mug. There was a piece of charcoal, a date, and a few beans cooked on top of the rice too. 

    After dinner, we bought a few staples at 7-eleven (they're everywhere) so we could have milk, bananas, and bread in our hotel kitchen. We all took much-needed showers & were ready to crash after a 17,000+ step day. Then we got an unexpected email from Mrs. S, our SW! She asked if I would be willing, along with my parents, to share our family's story of adoption at the meeting tomorrow with the 7 other families. Of course, we said Yes, but it was very short notice and I didn't know what I was going to say.  And here I thought this visit was going to be less nerve wracking! Haha Oh well, we will figure things out! 

Bedtime. G'night.