Seoul, South Korea - Day 2

What we did:
- Absolutely glorious 10+ hours of sleep had us fresh and ready for another day of gorging on Korean delicacies. Also woke up to find out THE HOOSIERS ARE 8-0!!! Playoffs here we come.
- Grabbed a quick bagel to plan out the day before heading over to the Onion Cafe. Super long line, but well worth the wait! Stacks of delicious pastries and sat traditional style - shoes off crossed legged on the floor. Hadn’t sat criss cross apple sauce since playing the recorder in 5th grade music class
- From there we wandered through the traditonal Hanok village embedded right in the middle of town. The polarity of the endless skyline of skyscrapers and the row of these little traditional houses made for a cool atmosphere. True to form, we grabbed a Korean craft beer in one of them. Big fans of the little rocky courtyards and fountains at the center of the traditional houses.
- Tell you what, those 15th century Koreans really knew how to build a crib. We toured the 2nd palace (of 5 total), Changdeokgung Palace, and were equally as impressed as the original. They built this one as overflow for the original Emperor's buddies to live. Can’t wait for the Glenbard South boys to make it big and do the same for us.
- We hadn’t felt much culture shock up to this point, besides how safe and clean the city is. That all went out the window when we walked into Gwangjang market. Pure pandemonium and we loved it. This building is essentially a massive warehouse with tightly packed rows and rows of little stalls & restaurants and throngs of people. Folks were peddling every concoction of food you could imagine, both appetizing and horrifying (r.e. blood sausages & fermented skate fish). After a good 4 laps to calm our sensory overload and identify the least sketchy shops, we worked our way through 4 delicious snacks (see food below)
- Full beyond belief we walked over to a traditional tea house. After the chaos, the calm traditional music and ambience and warm tea was welcomed
- We regrouped at the hotel for a bit (i.e. Trent falling asleep after previously claiming he had alpha'd the jet lag). We grabbed a great dinner of fried chicken and Terra beer and called it a night!
- Day 2 was a big success! Another 20k+ steps day - we figure we’d have six packs by the end of this trip if it wasn’t for the layer of dumplings covering it

What we ate:
- Update from yesterday *bury us in kimchi, dumplings, fried chicken and Korean pancakes“ when we die
- Cafe Onion Anguk: pastries, pastries, and MORE pastries! What didn’t we get at this place…see picture of our loot. Trent’s favorite was a chilli croissant sausage and Steph’s were the two items they are known for - cream cheese garlic baguette and pandoro. The baguette was a better version of a bagel, and the easiest way to explain the pandoro is that it tasted like snow if snow was a confection. Got some coffees to top it all off and sat on the floor in the traditional style Hanok cafe.
- Drinks at Waoak: the struggle to find bars continue. No one drinks until 6pm apparently? Don’t they know that this is NOT how we vacation? It had started to rain so we found a cute little cafe in Hanok village that served booze - what a win! Tried some local Korean beers before heading to the next spot.
- Gwanjang Market: We tried Korean pork scallion pancakes, vegetarian and kimchi dumplings, and hottoek (hot pancakes filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and peanuts) - all so delicious! We were thrilled with our choices.
- Namusae Tea House: traditional Korean tea house for happy hour. Trent got a hot ginger tea (what a zinger) and after a lot of research on what all the teas are good for, Steph got cinnamon tea. While trying to ignore the similarities, after a few sips Steph could not ignore that she was basically drinking hot fireball. Oh well - more tea to try in Japan.
- Kyochon Chicken: exhausted after another day in our feet, we decided to check off another Korean food staple - fried chicken! After lots of research on Trents end, we found ourselves at one of their most popular chains! Garlic soy with their red sauce and a beer - these wings are better than what we get in the states! Korean fried chicken deserves the hype!

Fun facts:
- There are currently 87,000 fried chicken stores operating in Korea as of February 2019. To give you an idea of how big the number is, there are 44,000 Subway locations and 37,000 McDonalds globally!
- Bakeries/baked goods were not introduced to Korea until the 1980s when the first Paris Baguette opened. Since then you can find a Paris Baguette on every other block and innovative pastries have become a staple for modern day Koreans.
- Ah sweet Trent…very endearing as always, has no idea how to bow to people when being bowed to. One of two things can happen during these exchanges, 1) He panics and once realizing he needs to react, bows only after the person is no longer in sight, or 2) over exaggerates the bow (hands in prayer, bowing at the waist) to the point it looks like he could be perfecting his own dance move. Either way, this will be an area for improvement for Trent during our time over here.Weiterlesen