It was one of our first weekends in Korea! And we were off to Gangnam, Seoul! Timeout. Incase you’ve never heard the song “Gangnam Style” you need to. Please click here. Anyway, we were going to Seoul with our friend Heidi, who is a fellow Seattleite living in Cheonan. We had all been in the same TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course in Seattle, and she was the one who told us about the teaching positions at her school. Heidi had purchased three bus tickets from Cheonan to Seoul (about 60 miles apart) at 6,000 Won (6 USD). She had made the trip from Cheonan to Seoul plenty of times, so she was a pro. We met Heidi at the train station near her apartment, and then we all walked together to the express bus stop, which just happened to be right across from the train station the bullet train leaves from. Our bus tickets were for the 9:10 bus, and we arrived at the bus stop around 8:50, so we had plenty of time to spare. Heidi actually ended up seeing a lady and her daughter she had met in Cheonan (they were expats from California), and we chatted it up with them for a while. Before we knew it, the bus was pulling up and Heidi handed the driver our tickets. The bus driver looked at our tickets and said something to Heidi in Korean. Heidi is half Korean and speaks Korean pretty well, but Heidi’s friend from California speaks fluent Korean and stepped in to help. The bus company had updated their bus ticket app and the new bus stop for our tickets was on the other side of town. Opps! We were supposed to be at the Cheonan bus stop, not the Cheonan-asan bus stop. Well, we were definitely missing our bus. What could we do at this point other than head straight into the train terminal and catch a bullet train. We found a ticket machine and figured out the next bullet train to Seoul was leaving in about 10 minutes. We bought reserved seats for 14,000 Won (around 12 USD) and headed to the train platform. About 40 minutes later we were in Seoul! So our plans for the day consisted of the following: go to Gangnam (a neighborhood in Seoul) where we would eat at Shake Shack (as US restaurant) and Coco Curry (a Japanese restaurant), go to the Lotte Tower and walk on the glass floor, and head over to the Olympic Park and cruise around. First on the list was to eat at Shake Shack. Heidi had told us a Shake Shack had recently opened in Seoul and she really wanted to try it. Fine by us! Shake Shack opens at 11, and if you don’t get there right when it opens, the line can literally go down the street. We were able to get to Shake Shack around 11:10 so we didn’t have much of a wait. The menu was similar to the menu in America, including the prices. Heidi and Casey each ordered a burger and I stuck with a shake. Yummy! Shake Shack did not disappoint. Next on our list was to find the Coco Curry. Coco Curry is actually a Japanese chain that serves Japanese curry. I had been desperately craving Japanese curry ever since I found out Seoul had a Coco Curry. So a little lesson, Google Maps doesn’t really work in Korea. It will show the correct street names and such, but actual establishments aren’t always on the map or even in the right place. South Koreans use Naver Maps instead, which works great! The only problem is, the search function only works in Korean, unless the place of establishment has an English name. So, to say the least, it can get kind of tricky to navigate around Korea. Anyway, we could not find the Coco Curry. Google Maps was telling us Coco Curry was right in the middle of a neighborhood. Casey swore he had seen a sign that said Coco on the main road we had been on, so we decided to head back to check it out. Bingo! Casey was right! The Coco Curry was right there. I was so excited. After lunch number two, we were on our way to the Lotte Tower! Lotte Tower is huge! It stands at 123 stories and is 555 meters tall (1,820 feet). We purchased our tickets for the 2:30 time slot and since we had gotten there around 2:15 so we didn’t have to wait long. The elevator ride up 117 stories was crazy. It was so fast! My ears were popping non-stop. When we made it to the top the elevators doors opened to a breathtaking view of Seoul. Luckily, for us, it was a pretty clear day. After taking an absurd amount of pictures, we went up to the other floors and finally reached the see-through glass floor. Can you say scary?! But so cool! After we took a million selfies, we finally headed down. We weren’t ready to head back to Cheonan just yet, so we headed over to Olympic Park. The park was created for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Korea. On our way to the park, we walked right into a huge outdoor Pikachu Pokemon convention. On the main stage with dozens of kids running around and about 100,000 watts of surround-sound speaker power, the unedited version of Bloodhound Gang, “You and Me Baby Ain’t Nothing but Mammals” was thumping loud for all to hear. The kids were playing and dancing to it without any issues. Hmmmm, well, Ok. Super appropriate for 4 and 5 year olds. After letting our inner child shine, and taking more than our fair share of pictures with the Pokemon characters, we finally made it to the park. It was so gorgeous! The leaves were changing colors and there were so many people out walking around and enjoying the last of the fall weather. We did a lap around one of the small ponds and reluctantly made our way back to the train station to head home. Since it was a Sunday night, and everybody was heading out of Seoul, there were standing only tickets left on the trains. It was only a 37 minute ride back to Cheonan, so it wasn’t too bad for us. Heidi, Casey and I all got off the train with sore feet, sore legs, but full stomachs and an amazing memory of a fun filled Sunday!
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