Day 2

The following day we got up bright and early and rode the subway to Seoul. The city proper of Seoul has a population of 10 million, and there are another 13 million living in the suburbs. This is a big city. Big enough to make each area feel very small!

Lauren and I poked around the daily farmer's market going on near our hotel. They had living eels splashing around in tubs of water. :(

Anyway, while in Seoul we visited a Buddhist temple.

After checking out the temple, which was called Jogye-sa, we walked down the Dongdaemun Market. There was a lot of kitschy stuff there, like glass figurines, stuffed animals, and paper fans. But they also had ice cream and frozen yogurt vendors every couple hundred feet. Also, slushies. Given the heat and humidity, I consumed a lot of these frozen goods.

We also saw several vendors who had fresh chopped fruit in plastic cups. You pick a cup, they toss the contents in a blender with some ice, and then hand the results back to you. Oddly enough, they also had tomato smoothies...

It was Lauren's birthday on this day, so after the temple and market we retired to the hotel and I gave Lauren a red dress. We got dressed up and headed over to Seoul's college town. It's amazing how much more familiar it felt. College students, pizza places, and bars all over. Just like Chico!

We did more walking in this week than I typically do in a month. Each night I was asleep before my head hit the pillow, and my feet hurt! After walking around college town, we caught the last subway back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.