Korea and Elder Goon

Picking up Elder Goon: October 23, 2018

We arrived in Korea the day before it was time to pick up Taz. We managed to find out hotel after getting off the wrong bus stop.  We were packing our suitcases around and looking at the GPS on our phones trying to find our hotel...nothing like screaming tourist in a foreign country.
At the mission home, we met President and Sister Turner and Taz said his goodbyes and then, just like that it was over. He was still a missionary until we got back to the states and he was released, but for two weeks, we were his new companions and he could go and do a lot of things.

He said his goodbyes to Elder Kim (an office Elder) and Elder Lam and Elder Mark who were also going home.

We left and went to Lotte Tower, the tallest Tower in Korea, surpassing the Seoul Tower, and the 5th tallest in the world.  Taz had been waiting his whole mission to see it. The view was spectacular and it was super high!

We then walked to Olympic park. It was not where the current 2018 Winter Olympics were held, but where the summer Olympics were held when Seoul hosted.

On the way back, we walked by this super big church. It is not an LDS church. People in Korea believe that the bigger the church is, the more true it is. So clearly, this must be a true church!

Korean Folk Village:

One of our favorite trips was to the Korean Folk village. When we entered, we wrote a wish on a piece of paper and tied it to the wishing rocks. We looked at different economic levels of houses within the folk village.  We played some traditional games, Garry and Taz trying to throw sticks into the pots, and a life size version of Yutnori. Every house had some sort of Kim chi pot garden where they fermented Kim chi and it was fall, so the trees were absolutely gorgeous!

 We watched some shows that were typical to the time when the village was populated. They were so fun and colorful and cool! There were school groups all around and the cutest preschoolers were right in front of us! This little girl stole the show as she kept looking back at a group of elderly ladies behind her and playing with them. She was adorable.

There was an interesting snack that we got which were these orange strips and you roasted them over pots that were out and about. It was so good and chewy once it was heated up. It was pumpkin flavored and called Jjondigi. It was quite popular there. We also ate lunch there.

Gyeongbokgung Palace:

One day two of Taz's friends Sister Mokjisu and Brother Jeongmyeongtaek took us to this palace. It was in Seoul and very popular with the tourists. Taz hadn't been there before since it was out of his zone. We walked all the way through the area and at the very end, you can look across the street and see "The Blue House" which is where the President of Korea lives, so called because the house is blue. You can see the guard standing at his station in the middle of the street. So many people were dressed in the traditional Korean Hanbok. If you wore it, you got into the palace free. The streets outside the palace were lined with little shops where you could rent them.  The ironic thing is, it only cost $2.00 to get in.  Our tour guide did a fabulous job and was pretty good translating to English.

Hwaseong:

Our next adventure was to Hwaseong. We met Taz's friend Yooeyeongsu. He was 18 and spent the day with us. We went to the LDS church right by this fortress and met Sister Patrick and Sister Rawlings who were there studying. Sister Patrick was Taz's volleyball bestie, so it was fun to meet her.

 We entered the fortress and walked through a row of flags. At all the palaces and fortresses and tombs there are two ways to walk.  One is on the Kings road and the other is on the peasants or commoners road. They are side by side.  Garry is on the Kings and I on the commoners. This place they were pretty similar, but some places, the king's road is way better. I had to go to the restroom and as I was sitting on the toilet, there was a huge window with a view of the outside! There were also pictures by the restrooms where you could get photos with cool paintings.

We ended up hiking up the hill to a Buddhist temple and a wall that surrounded the fortress. There were other temples along the top too.  They are beautiful inside.

We had to hike up a pretty steep hill and they had a spring where we could take a drink before we started. It was mostly stairs to climb, and I was very glad when we finally made it to the top! At the top, we walked around the wall. They had exercise machines and a giant gong that you could spend money to ring. Taz and I rang it. It took two of us to do it. It was so pretty and the leaves were huge. After we hiked back down the fortress, we walked through the town to catch our ride back.  You still had parts of the fortress and the moat downtown.

Gangnam:

Gangnam did not disappoint. We walked down Kpop street to get photos of all the Kpop stars for Lara, my piano student. We got BTS for her. Kpop groups are owned by companies and we happened on to SMTown's company and went inside. The whole place is devoted to the KPop groups they own. As you walk in and go up the escalators, the groups videos are playing and they have photos shots of all the groups members plastered on the walls and display cases of all the awards they've won. It was quite fascinating.  We went into high end sports stores like Nike and Adidas which had athletes medals and stuff. They had cool Dragonball Z shoe. Taz got to play an indoor soccer game. We walked through a Kakao talk store which is there way of texting each other and they have their own little critter emojis.It's quite a big deal in Korea.

Seoul Temple and Mina Park

Elder Packer was one of Taz's companions. His mom and dad picked him up and his dad had contacted us before we left for Korea saying they wanted to meet up with us at some point. We briefly saw them at the Korean Folk Village. Elder Packer was leaving a week before us and he and Taz decided they wanted to go to the temple one last time before leaving. So we met up with him and we went to the temple on Elder Packers last day there. We then met his dad and step mom for lunch afterwards and they left.  After lunch, we made our way to Incheon where we had a dinner date with Mina Park. Her mom is a chef and owns a restaurant. Mina is a little older than Taz, but they became great friends and her mom would always feed the missionaries at her restaurant. It was an Italian place and it was phenomenally delicious. Taz's favorite thing she makes is a traditional Korean dessert called Bingsu. It is shaved ice with red bean paste and fruit toppings and sweetened condensed milk.  Being fall, it was put away for the seasons. She only makes it in the spring and summer months, but Taz was so sad, so she said she's make one just for him. She pulled out all the gear and made us Bingsu and it was delicious.

King Seolleung's Tomb

Literally right in the middle of a busy city is King Seolleung's tombs. He was in the Joseon Dynasty and there are three tombs there. His, his wife's and a son's. It was beautiful and so surprising that it's in the middle of town.   There was hardly anyone there as it was the middle of the week when we went.  There  were a log of dragons and Phoenix's decorations throughout.  They have a path all throughout the area that is the spirit's road. It is where the spirits can walk up to the tombs. Garry and Taz are standing in front of it. Taz and I are once again standing on the paths to the houses. The raised path is the King's road and the lower outer path is the commoners road.  They have stone statues that guard the tombs, and stone animals that surround them.  The Kings were very wise and insisted that no riches or treasures were to buried with them. That way there would be less chance of grave robbers and so the tombs have stood up to time very well. We watched a video on how they buried them and it was quite a process. 

Korean Graffiti

After the tomb, we decided to go to a park. On the walk there, we saw a black van. Taz says it's how they transport the KPop stars, so I took a photo, not knowing if there were stars inside or not...I like to think there was. We then had to walk down Graffiti row and it is a place that just has tons of graffiti. You have to apply to put your stuff there and it's kept for a long time, but slowly parts get painted over as new artists acquire spots.  It's in a giant tunnel.  We took photos of some of our favorites. Taz and I are pointing to the words that say Train to Busan which is one of our favorite Korean movies.

Yeouido

We then ended up at Yeouido it is a famous park by the Han river. A Korean movie, The Host, was filmed there. On the other side of the river is Seoul.  We rented bikes and rode them up and down the park. It was beautiful and super fun.  They had cool tiles down by the river and little areas where you could sit and relax that were made out of bungee cords and PVC pipes. They had interesting statues made out of things like tires and they had the monster from The Host. None of us had seen the movie, but we watched it when we got back to the states...not sure if it was a comedy or a horror?! They had cool topiaries and beautiful flowers.  Taz was very melancholy as we left feeling sad that he'd probably would never see this place again. 

Meerkat cafe

Taz took us to a busy street that had a bunch of vendors, it was a famous area of town but I forget what it was called. We just happened on a Meerkat Cafe and decided to go. It ended up being probably our favorite part of the whole trip. They have dog and cat cafes all over Korea where you go in and buy a drink and can play with the animals. We even heard about a raccoon one that we were going to try to go to, so when we stumbled on this and saw that they had a raccoon, we tried it. We spent over two hours in there and it was kind of spendy...$12/person but we had so much fun. The Meerkats were sequestered in their own area and a worker had to take us in and we could only spend 10 min. in there, but they were behaving well, so he let us spend 20 min. in there. They make you take everything out of your pockets because the animals were so curious. Taz however just tucked his badge in his sweater and boy were they trying to get to that badge. It was so funny. They especially loved Garry and I don't even know some of the names of those animals, but they were curious and fun. The raccoon didn't have a tail and the mini kangaroos were fun. They had a variety of cats and the grey on Taz is by was soooo soft. The other cat like creatures were climbing all over Taz and Garry and biting their ears, according to all reports it was quite painful and ticklish at the same time.

Namhansanseong

This was an amazing fortress that Taz had spent a lot of time at. As a mission zone, the Turners would take the missionaries up there every year. The day we went was rainy and blustery but pretty and magnificent.  We walked quite a bit of the great wall surrounding it and just saw beautiful buildings and views of the city below us. Truly an unforgettable experience.

Seoul Tower

Seoul Tower used to be the tallest building in Korea until they built Lotte Tower. We weren't going to go, but we had a free day so we decided to go. It again was quite a hike up a mountain to get to it but the views were spectacular. It was quite crowded and on the way out, we found out we could have taken a trolley up the mountain, we took it down instead. The restrooms were open windows so as they were using the urinal, they could see the whole town. They had a lock wall outside the tower and little shows going on which we didn't stay for, and Pandas and a lot of fun picture taking things. We walked down around Seoul after we'd gone up the tower and found fun things to pose with. All in all, we were glad we went.

Nami Island

One of our last adventures was a trip to Nami Island. Brother Park took us and it was a two hour drive each way in his car. It was so nice of him to take us there. A famous Korean Soap Opera was filmed there called Winter Sonata and so it is really big with the locals. It was super crowded but fun to explore and look around. They have a bunch of snowmen and other props from the TV show all around the island. You had to take a ferry to get there and back and we ate lunch before we headed over to the island. There were beautiful fall trees every where and was just so gorgeous and fun. We were so grateful to Brother Park for taking us there. Now we really want to see the series. It was only one season I think, but hard to find here in America. Definitely worth the four hour drive!