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

The week we arrived, Sojung told us that there was a big MERS disease outbreak, and so almost everyone was wearing masks. She said it was way less crowded in the subways and everywhere else we went because people were staying inside more. She even bought us our own masks, but we didn't wear them much ;)

I loved all of the lily pads floating around the temple here. This temple is right in the middle of the city and is so big.

We all took some silly face pictures in front of this temple, but Jenelle's face was my favorite.

After the temple, we walked to the downtown area. You can walk along the little river path down there for a bit. We walked it for a little bit, but quickly got tired since we had been walking all day and grabbed dinner. While we were in Seoul, we were busy every day and seriously walked over 10 miles every day. Every night we were always so exhausted.

Another day in Seoul, we went to the temple in the morning. 

After the temple, we walked to the Hello Kitty Cafe. Yes, this is a real place! I was dying because it is so adorable and because everything was pink. I loved it!

My meal was almost too cute to eat. I don't even know how they were able to make a kitty face in my hot chocolate, too funny!

The girls had fun here (the boys on the other hand, not so much;)

Then we headed over to Myeongdong market. There are tons of markets in Seoul, and they are all so colorful and fun! I loved exploring this one.

I of course bought some strawberry mochi, but this definitely tasted different than the kind I bought in Kyoto (not as good in Seoul, oh well).

We walked through the streets to catch a bus to go up to the N Seoul Tower at sunset.

This was probably my favorite place in Seoul because you can literally see the whole city. Go at sunset so you can see the city in the daylight and at night. It is the biggest city I have ever seen. High rise buildings go on for as far as you can see in every direction, it's crazy.

They also have love locks here, it's a very romantic place. I think we saw 4 couples get engaged while we were here just one night!

My Seoul mate ;)

We ate dinner here before we took the elevator up to the top of the tower. I think it's safe to say that this will be the best "diner with a view" that we will ever have.

Seoul is an amazing place. Part #2 and #3 coming soon!