Spicy Fishy » Seoul

Winter Vacation Part 1 – Seoul

Chad — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:48:39 +0000

Over the next few days/weeks we’ll be posting pictures and stories from our Winter 2010 Vacation. This is the first installment about the first stop on our adventure – Seoul.

Kate’s sister, Molly, came to visit us in Korea in late December. She stayed for about 10 days and we had a great time with her. It was wonderful to actually get to share this place with someone from home. The last 4 days that she was here we were off work and we all went to Seoul. The trip was mainly a whirlwind tour of the city’s hot spots. Here are some pictures from Seoul. There are more in the gallery to the left. As always – click for a larger image.

We stopped at a KimBap Restaurant (Korean Fast Food) for a cheap snack before heading off for the afternoon. This is Ram-bokki a combination of Ramen Noodles and Dakbokki – spicy sauce and rice cake. In the background you can see Kim Bap (Korean sushi rolls without the sushi) and Mandu (Korean Dumplings). Molly had a pretty good amount of Korean food while she was here… its definitely an experience. Kate and I love this stuff now

There was an Andy Warhol Portraits exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art, so naturally we checked it out. It was a coooold night but we ventured out. The exhibit was fantastic! A really wide range of his work and a lot of historical information and artifacts about his life. The English translations of the commentary were also really entertaining.

We got a little lost walking back to the subway which wasn’t good because it was about 1 degree outside…but we made it!

The next day we went to Bongeun-sa Temple near the Coex Mall. Every Thursday they have a “Temple Life” program where foreigners can get a tour of the temple, learn some basic meditation practices, participate in the Tea Ceremony and make lotus flowers. It was about 2 hours and a really great way to experience Korean Buddhism up close. We had hoped to do an overnight Temple Stay the weekend before, but Kate was sick and it didn’t seem like a good idea. This was a nice way to still get at least some of the experience.

Lanterns are hung at the temples for a period of time before and after the four major Buddhist holidays. I think these were up for the New Year.

This is one of the tallest Buddha Statues in Korea. The picture doesn’t really do it justice but it was huge!

Tea ceremony!

Kate and Molly making Lotus Flowers

The Temple is right in the middle of the city – providing an interesting contrast between the skyscrapers and apartment buildings all around it.

Kate and Molly on the Subway. Seoul has one of the best subways I’ve ever been on. It’s quiet, clean, and fast… amazing!

The last day we took a bus tour around the city. This was the easiest and cheapest way to see all the highlights of the city. It was a fun way to spend the day.

I think this is Namdaemoon, or Dongdaemoon … From the bus.

We also went to see Avatar in 3D one afternoon, and ate some Mexican food in Itaewon. On Saturday we took Molly to the airport for her early morning flight, then we waited there for our 9:30pm flight. Stuck in the airport for 13 hours… not too fun. Incheon is kind of the most amazing airport in the world though, so it was not a problem… more on that in the next post… Manila!

Happy New Year – from Puerto Princesa

Chad — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:01:37 +0000

Happy New Year! (belated.. )

Hello all,

I wrote a longer post a little bit ago but it got deleted Sorry… here is an abridged version -

Kate and I are in Puerto Princesa right now sitting in an internet cafe surrounded by World of Warcraft Gamers. This morning we were in Manila – which was an interesting experience. Very grimy gritty city – more third worldy than we expected but it was definitely worth a day or two. It Put everything in perspective for sure. We will post more about that later.

Kate’s sister Molly was in Korea for the last 2 weeks visiting us. We had a great time with her!! She came to school with us.. toured around Samcheok and went to Seoul for a few days before she flew home and we flew to the Philippines.

Making Lanterns at Bongeunsa Temple in Seoul

Again at the Temple

Kate and Molly on a Seoul Bus Tour

Kate and I had to wait in the airport for 12 hours for our flight (after Molly flew out in the morning) . Gave me some time to practice with my Camera

Kate doesn’t like sitting in the airport for 12 hours

Some Kids in Rizal Park in Manila. They were really excited when they saw my camera

Kate, Blanca and Ana (friends we met at our hostel) at Fort Santiago in Manila.

The view from our hostel tonight on Palawan Island – Puerto Princesa City…. Pretty amazing.

We’ll post some more pictures sooon when we get internet access again.

More soon,

-All the best

—-Chad & Kate!

Fall Pictures

Chad — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:22:33 +0000

I’ve been hoarding a bunch of new pictures for the past few weeks – waiting for a good time to edit them down and post them. So here we are. Be sure to check the captions on the pictures for more information about them. We’ve had some great adventures lately and these hopefully capture a bit of them. I’ve been trigger happy lately ending up with 5 and 6 hundred photos from some trips, so this is definitely a sampling – but it’s really all the pictures anyone would ever actually want to see. I’ll be posting some more photosynths of places around Korea soon too. (That’s really where the photo counts go up like crazy! )

Enjoy and please leave a comment!

-Chad

[album id=6 template=extend]

Seoul Tower Photosynth

Chad — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:22:30 +0000

This is a photosynth I took while in Seoul last month. It took me quite a while to get this online because I had about 400 pictures and needed to edit them down to about 300 for the program to work correctly. I hope you enjoy it – it’s an interesting way to see Seoul.

N-Seoul Tower is a “space-needle” like tower in the middle of seoul on a big hill. Great view – but it was a bit cloudy the day we were there so it’s hard to see everything in the pictures. Still impressive though. Hopefully you can see enough to get an idea of just how large the city is. Pretty incredible.

Again you might need to download a plugin to view the photosynth.

Enjoy -

-Chad

April Trip to Seoul

Chad — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:51:52 +0000

[Sorry to anyone who received any random emails from spicyfishy the other day. Was a test gone wrong Please forgive me.. ]

Two weekends ago Kate and I went to Seoul for a Gustav Klimt Exhibit. We left Friday night after school and headed off to the big city for 2 nights. We packed a lot into our time and here are a few pictures from our adventures.

We met up with some friends in Itaewon for a farewell dinner as they headed off for new adventures the next day. Got there a lot later than we wanted to due to a longer than usual bus ride and some misread subway signs, but we made it nonetheless. Luckily we had no plans for Saturday so we got to sleep in and recover from the long week at school and travels.

We had a few goals for the weekend – Go to the Klimt exhibit, look at prices on DSLR cameras, Shop for some new clothes, and maybe go to see a show or ballet. We accomplished all this and more!

Saturday was spent shopping like crazy in Myeong-dong and Namdaemoon. We had never been to this area but really loved it! Lots of great stores and interesting clothes as well as some standards like the Gap, Forever 21 (for Kate), Nike, Addidas, and an unexpected American Apparel. Aside from American Apparel we ended up getting most of our new swag at korean stores, but it was fun to go to familiar stores. From there we headed over to Namdaemoon for some Camera Shopping. Enter the pictures…. – right after I bought my Canon Kiss F (Japanese model of the Rebel Xti/400D)!!! I got a great deal on a used model – got him to throw in a stabilized lens, a case, screen/lens protectors, extra battery and a 4gb memory card! I’m really happy with it. Here is what it can do … and be sure to checkout all the pictures from the trip here.

This is the shop where I bought my camera. It’s part of this mega camera mall with lots of small shops. Fun to browse – a pain to actually buy though, as everyone is trying to get your business and trying to undersell each other. I probably could have gotten an even better deal, but didn’t feel like dealing with other people. :)

First shot with the Camera.. Natural lighting with the sunset right behind me. Looks like a bright flash but there wasn’t.

More test shots.. and pretty Kate :)

Like the lens flare? Hah

more… I was excited!

Fountain Square north of Namdaemoon Market in Seoul.

Random Subway stop (trying some indoor shots)

A cultural center near our hostel near the Anguk Station in Insadong.

This is my spy shot of the Ballet, La Bayadère on Saturday night. It was at the Seoul Arts Center and was a lot of fun. Shortly after this shot I got told not to take any more.. hence why it’s blurry.

Check out Kate’s new blog for her review of the performance!

The foyer of the Opera Hall at the Seoul Arts Center

more… me playing with my camera :)

The exterior..

I like these… :)

That family thought I was pretty weird. :)

Kate and I went to a really upclass area of Seoul after the Ballet (only appropriate right?) and had dinner (a snack really) at a really swanky place called “the Gorilla in the Kitchen” (I don’t know either…).

It was interesting.. but quite a nice wind-down from the day.

You can see the modern design of the restaurant and the 10,000 won house red.

Me pretending to be swanky. Kate trying to get a shot of my wine glass and the blood pressure testing machine behind me. It was a health concious swanky restaurant… I think :)

Kate had some sort of secret…

This is our … pizza. wait what?!

and again.. what?! Luckily it tasted pretty good…

The bottle cork and more of me playing with my new camera :)

The next day we headed back to Myeong-dong for more shopping… :)

The Blues Brothers made it to Seoul!!

Whoa American Apparel in Seoul… and yes it’s just as hipster here.

Myeong-dong!

Requisite subway shot…

The weirdest/best store we found. The first floor was new interesting clothes, the second floor, was nicknacks shoes and other accesories, the downstairs was purses, hats, and other girl items, and on the top floor - a “flea market”.

This basically consisted of specific styles of clothes all from American thrift stores like Goodwill or Family Store. Wow it was weird.

Some stuff still had the price tags from America… (and I bought this shirt.. :)

All from America….

Finally we made it to the Klimt exhibit…

This is our reinactment of “The Kiss” by Gustov Klimt!

I think they put this in the gift shop to make up for the fact that the painting was no in the collection on display. This one’s better anyways…

More on Kate’s Birthday and future travels soon.

-Chad

Hand Art

Kate — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:49:00 +0000

Intertwined, October 2008, Seoul, Korea

This blog post holds another quirky chunk of our trip to Seoul. The day after we experienced the amazing Hotdog Fry we took a walk to the palace near our hostel. On our way to the palace we noticed a little science museum. We decided to check out the little museum. Our two friends that we were with at the time, Eve and Dave, both worked in a Science museum for kids in England so they were very excited!

At the end of our tour of the museum we noticed a bunch of kids crowded around this station. They were all getting these lovely little personal sculptures. Despite our fast approach to our mid-twenties we decided to koin in the Hand Sculpture fun!

1. Choose pose.

2. Cover hand in lots and LOTS of hand lotion.

3. Soak hand(s) in huge bucket of ice water.

4. Dip hands into the hot wax.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until your hand feels like it is being squished to death and the man helping you dip signals for you to stop.

(I clenched tighter and tighter as the wax got firmer and firmer. I’ve never really been to into sticking my body into hot wax. . .)

6. Watch the Master of Wax-Hand Sculpture shave away any random shoots of wax that protrude from your creation.

7. Pick your colors!

8. Place Hand Sculpture in clear plastic bag so that everyone you pass can see your beautiful creation.

It was fun! Now our Hand Sculpture is sitting on top of our huge TV, I hope it doesn’t melt!

The Tale of Hot Dog Fry

Kate — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:22:00 +0000

One evening in Seoul. . .

Behold Doota. This is the one tiny shopping maze we entered in the huge shopping district, Dung Dae Mun, in Seoul.

This is how we felt. Blurry Maze. Exhausting.

Chad loves shopping.

In hunter/gatherer fashion, he went in search of water and returned with news of nourishment never before seen by our Western eyes.

Which did we choose?

This – - a hot dog covered in batter and french fries.

One bite.

Bigger than my head.

Our friend Eve partaking in this artery hardening endeavor.

Dave took a bite, don’t worry.

Phew, okay, after that dramatic presentation of a taste of the tastes we got in Seoul, hello! We had a marvelous weekend full of things we would like to share with you soon. Most of the pictures we took were of events such as these. So, you get to see the quirks of Seoul. I hope everyone is well!Sleep time!