Busan, Korea

Busan is the 2nd largest city in Korea, located all the way in the South of the country on the water. We only stayed here for 1 night, but I'm glad we got to see it. Our first stop was to Gamcheon Culture Village. It's a little neighborhood on a mountainside, and people recently painted all of the homes and streets to be colorful and full of artwork. 

We spent the afternoon walking through the little village and checking out all of the fun artwork on the buildings. 

This is their "love lock" wall...

and it had some great views!

We chatted with this cute old man and asked to take his picture. Doesn't he look like he could be in Humans of Korea? He's so cute!

This restaurant was full of love post-it notes.

Near our hotel, there was a pretty walk along the ocean. We did it both days because it was so beautiful. It reminded me so much of Carmel, California.

We left Korea by ferry. It was fun because we spent the night on the ferry and woke up in the morning in Fukuoka, Japan. It's was a great way to travel because then you don't waste any time since you have to sleep anyways :) Also, I love how the bridges in Korea light up at night!

So long, Korea! Until next time :)

Seoul Part 1

When my dad was 19 years old, he served a mission for our church in Seoul, Korea. He’s always wanted to take our family back to show us the areas where he served and meet the people he taught, and we finally were able to make the trip out this past summer.

We were so excited to go! My dad had told us so much about his mission and we couldn't wait to experience the Korean culture. My little brother Luke even started learning Korean before the trip!

When we arrived, one of my dad’s friends met us at the airport. Her name is Sojung and my dad taught her family when he served his mission there. She was only around 5 years old at the time and she is the cutest! She has an amazing singing voice and she sang on broadway in New York as Miss Saigon for many years (she was also the voice of Mulan in the Disney movie in Korean:). She even had her own talk show in Korea! Anyways, we all feel like she is our sister now.

Every single day for 8 days, Sojung met us in the morning at our AirBnb apartment and took us around Seoul. It was so nice of her, and definitely made our trip there so much easier since we didn’t have to worry about navigating ourselves around (that would have been tricky since there are almost no English signs and barely anyone speaks English). My dad still speaks Korean fluently so lucky for us we had two Korean speakers with us at all times.

Our favorite part was watching my dad speak Korean with all of the people there. He would always leave everyone he chatted with laughing. In fact, right after I snapped this picture, my dad said some funny Korean phrase and literally 20 people around us started dying laughing. He was trying so hard to make the guard laugh, and he totally cracked a smile.

We spent 8 full days in Seoul and really got to know the city. It’s HUGE and I'm obsessed with it! It is such a cool city. We were a little spoiled because Sojung took us to all of the best spots, and my dad took us to all of the spots where he served, so it was a totally different experience then we could have created on our own.

One of the touristy things we did was explore Gyeongbokgung palace. Grant and Dallin looked like they were in deep discussion as they walked up to the palace entrance.

I caught a guy that asked Jenelle to take a picture with him. I was laughing because even the random other guy on her right snapped a photo too... Americans really do stand out here!

Do you see the woman's orange mask?? Ha! Dallin posted this picture on Instagram and said: "6'4" brother-in-laws don't really stand out like I thought they would." LOL

Seoul Part 2

Okay, it took me long enough to get this posted but we had so much fun exploring Seoul! This is part #2 (See part #1 here and part #3 will be coming soon, hopefully;). 

Seoul is amazing for many reasons. First, the subway system is so fancy & clean, they even play cute music when you arrive!...

The luxury theatres project movies on the side walls to make it feel like you are there...

the trash cans talk back and say thank you in a peaceful voice when you threw away your garbage....

the toilets are heated with tons of buttons to choose from haha...

everyone drives nice cars, we didn't see one car more than 10 years old on the road...

some restaurants grow their vegetables right there onsite...

the streets were so clean even though packed with people, their technology was just so advanced, and much more!

It’s amazing and I loved it! It's kind of underrated as a tourist spot though because we literally saw like only two other tourists there, lol. There aren't many English signs so it would probably be hard to get around if you didn't speak Korean, so that might be one factor. Sojung told us that 97% of the population is Korean.

Seoul Part 3

This is my third & last post about Seoul (see part #1 here and part #2 here). In our last few days there, we did a little bit more exploring :)

We walked the streets of an area that my dad served his mission in, called the Shindangdong district. My dad told us his mission stories as we walked, and we loved it. He said this area looked almost the exact same as is did when he was here last.

As we walked along, we saw some fun things. This owner dyed their dog's legs pink! We thought it was hilarious (and this wasn't the only pet dog we saw like this either!).

We saw lot's of locals on the street selling food and other items. This man was selling garlic.

We made it to the old church in my dad's mission area. This of course has been renovated since my dad was there.

Later, we went downtown to explore more of Seoul and we ate at a Korean Buffet that we all actually loved!

Suwon Korean Folk Village

After we finished exploring Seoul, we traveled south. We wanted to see more cities that my dad served his mission in and other areas of the country in general. One of these included a day trip to a Korean Folk Village, which took us back in time to what it used to be like in Korea hundreds of years ago.

It was a fun place to soak in traditional Korean culture & history :) 

Korea: Yangdong Folk Village

When we left Seoul, we ventured a few hours south to a new city called Gyeongju. While there, we went to Yangong Village which is another Traditional Korean folk village.