Since our last post, we celebrated our 2 years together. We went to Baskin Robbins & got a small sampler cake (it had 9 different flavors). With the cake came some dry ice... we did several experiments. Our favorite was the giant soap bubble we made! It was a fun & relaxing evening.
Last weekend we were going to go to Seoul but we ended up going out late on Friday night to 2 new places. Santa Claus & Shisha House. Yes, I said Santa Claus. It's a bar. They have delicious hotdogs! They were pretty big. Don't know why we didn't think to take a picture! Next time though. Shisha House was one of the nicest places we've been to when it comes to appearance. Definitely the cleanest public bathroom we've been in! Other than that, we mostly relaxed over the weekend & watched movies. We went to see Man of Steel & loved it! Highly recommended!
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| Our TEFL Certificates came! |
During the week we had really high stress levels. A couple of John's classes keep getting changed so he isn't able to maintain consistency with the students. And it's even harder that it's his youngest kids... & that he doesn't know about these changes until they are happening while he is in the middle of class! On Thursday, he also found out that he had to attend a 7-hour seminar on Saturday. But this information came from a coworker, not his boss! We decided that we would both go because it was in Seoul (and a free ride to Seoul) & then spend the night & take the train home on Sunday. Thankfully it worked out but that seminar was mostly ridiculous & only a little helpful. The audience was supposed to be Koreans who teach or want to teach English. We were just a few of the maybe 10 white people that were there.
Nicole had what's called 'open class' on Friday. All of her kids parents sat in her classroom to watch her teach for 45 minutes. She had been preparing for it for over 4 weeks. So much stress was put on her to have a "perfect" open class. 45 minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but it is! The night before, we went to Self Bar & ate our way thru a lot of meat. It was a good stress reliever. After it was over Friday, Nicole was so happy. And the class actually went very well. Her students were great.
Before we headed to Seoul on Saturday morning, we went to a couple of Nicole's coworkers house & watched Back to the Future! One of her coworkers had never seen it & everyone was just very off put by that fact so it was a must watch. We got home around 11:30 & fell asleep by 12:30, only to wake up at 5:20 so that we could get on the road at 6:00 for Seoul. The only time we saw our apartment this weekend (besides tonight), was when we were sleeping in on Friday! It was a nice getaway though.
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| Make-up area in the hallway of our hotel. |
Our Seoul trip was a rough start, but it ended up being AMAZING!! We loved every minute after the seminar. After the seminar we found our way to the Seoul Station to buy our train tickets for Sunday. Once we had the tickets we took the subway into Myeongdong. We had to find a hotel to stay in. The first two we looked at were completely booked. Well, one of them had one more room available but it didn't have a bed... deal breaker! The 3rd one we found had 1 room available! It had 3 twin beds in it! Hello giant bed! The guy gave us a nice discount too since there was only 2 of us. After a couple hours of rest we ventured out into the crazy shopping world of Myeongdong. It's one of the most popular shopping areas in Seoul. It really was crazy! There was so much to see! Nicole was able to buy "I <3 Korea" shirts for her boys back in BR. We saw so many Psy socks too! That's just a fun phrase to say. We even found Snoopy & the dog cafe without even trying! We didn't go to the cafe, but we will next time! After exploring the area, we watched a movie & went to bed. And got a wonderful night of sleep!
This morning we went to the Namsan Seoul Tower!! That was fantastic too! We checked out of our hotel & walked to the tower. First, we took a slanted elevator up. Then we took a cable car up the mountain. Then we went up some stairs. And we finally made it to the bottom of the tower! Yes, the bottom. We purchased tickets for the Teddy Bear Museum & Observatory. The Teddy Bear Museum was adorable & entertaining. After that we went up to the Observatory Deck. We had the most amazing views of Seoul. Full 360 degrees! There was even a "post office" up there where you could send postcards. Nicole was very thrilled to finally see postcards so we bought a few to take home with us! After the observatory deck, we headed back down & looked all the "locks of love". Then we ended our visit because we were getting hungry! There were restaurants there but we figured probably too expensive to be worth it.
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| Slanted elevator |
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| Going up the slanted elevator |
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| A view from the cable car |
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| Hello N Seoul Tower! |
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| Panoramic view from top the mountain/bottom of Namsan Tower |
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| We made it to the observatory deck! |
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| Pyongyang, North Korea is 193.6 km that way |
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| N for Nicole! |
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| Sitting in the "love chair" in front of just a few of the "locks of love"; they were everywhere! |
We found our way to Namdaemun Market & John found the exact sunglasses he's been looking for! He has been trying to find what he wants for 2 months now. And then there they were! $10. Win! He loves them. As for food, we ended up caving in & got McDonald's. We got the 1955 burger! We wonder if they have that in the states...?
Then we got on a train & made it home a couple of hours later! What a wonderful weekend away. We hope you enjoy all of the pictures!
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| Beautiful fountain in Myeongdong! |
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| A Quiznos next to a 7-11. How did we get to America?! |
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| Back at Seoul Station waiting for our train when we're given this hat to wear; check out those new shades! |
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| Bulgogi burger @ McDonalds |
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| Since we haven't posted a picture yet, here is our new apartment building. The Doll House. We are 2nd floor. |
Hey Guys:
ReplyDeleteWonderful words and phantastic photos. Congrats, too, on the certificates!! Nic, Connor mentioned to me that your mom did send the box. I asked her in an email awhile back about the cost and splitting it. I'll follow up if I don't hear from her. Obviously, please let her or me know if you don't get it. Hope everything is well. Love and miss you.