Our travel morning to Vietnam began early as we needed to take the metro for about an hour and a half to get to the airport. Thankfully we beat most of the morning rush hour and had only one transfer stop. Once bags were checked and transferred to the terminal, it was off to find some breakfast. They surprisingly had a Jamba Juice and their menu said they had smoothie bowls so I was excited to have something healthy for breakfast. We noticed in Korea most of their coffee and fast food places you could only order through kiosks. Unfortunately, they weren’t making any smoothie bowls that morning so it was off to a Paris themed cafe for some coffee and a pastry which didn’t really satisfy us. On the way there we also saw the first Taco Bell we’ve yet seen anywhere outside of the US. Grant grabbed some donut holes from Dunkin’ to eat before it was time to board.

Upon landing in Vietnam, we were greeted with sun and 85 degrees. I was thankful we could take off our coats from South Korea and enjoy some time in shorts and sandals. In the airport we noticed no one was really wearing their mask so it was nice to be free of it! Getting through customs and grabbing our bags was a breeze. The fun began when we got outside. We headed towards the currency exchange and immediately got approached by two different companies trying to get us to exchange there. Grant asked who had the best price to put them against each other and we went with the best one. It was kind of nice in Korea to not get heckled or approached by people to use them.

Grant had read that there were only a few taxi companies that didn’t try to cheat you so we initially tried to find the specific company before ending up using their ride share app, Grab. Even while waiting for our driver to come we still got approached by people saying they could give us rides for better price. Our driver finally arrived and it was off to check into the Airbnb. I got my first taste of what the traffic was like in Da Nang. The roundabouts are crazy! It’s not like the US where people yield to oncoming cars. They just head into the roundabout and slowly make their way around. But when you’re in the car it looks like you’re going to get into a wreck with someone. It seems in Vietnam the goal on the road is to constantly be moving no matter what!

When we arrived at the Airbnb, we were told to check in with the receptionist who looked more like a guard. He didn’t really speak much English but told us to wait while our host headed to the lobby. She also spoke very little English but was able to use google translate to help with any comments she needed to tell us. I felt bad because she grabbed my heavy bag and headed to the elevator to take us to the apartment on the 39th floor. She showed us around the apartment (which was mostly just pantomiming and pointing to various things) before we were left to enjoy the view from our balcony.

After unpacking and getting settled, we headed down to the beach to walk around. We grabbed a smoothie and some fries at a beach spot, dropped our jaws at how cheap they were, and enjoyed the nice ocean breeze blowing through. We could instantly tell there were more Westerners here than there were in Seoul this time of year, which surprised us. We even saw a public dance party filled with mostly westerners and some locals called “Dork Dancing for Mental Health.” Upon googling to try to remember the name, we discovered it’s an entire movement on YouTube. Needless to say we were caught off guard when one of the first things we saw in Vietnam was the street corner from the linked YouTube video blasting this song! The people watching was amazing – in particular an older Vietnamese man sitting on his parked motorbike with mouth wide open watching the group.

We continued our walk down the strand and noticed a lot of their restaurants here are like aquariums, except that people choose their seafood from these tanks. I like seafood but that seemed a little too weird for me to try. We ended up at East West Brewery hoping to grab some dinner but ended up just grabbing a drink and some fries (again, whoops) since the menu wasn’t too appealing to us.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped by a local mini mart to grab some snacks. We talked to a Vietnamese man from Ho Chi Minh City also on vacation and asked about what snake-scale looking fruit was. He said he didn’t really know but his girlfriend loved it and gave us two to try. Turns out it’s popular in Indonesia. Grant wasn’t a fan of it and said it tasted like a bland apple, but I finished the whole thing. But we ended up leaving the grocery store with a whole sackful that only cost $26 USD. Our box of granola bars from Australia was the most expensive and cost half of what we paid for everything.

Our last full day in Korea began slow. It has been nice this week to slow down and enjoy sleeping in. We decided to start with a morning coffee at a Starbucks just behind our building. We ordered our drinks to go but sat down to eat a pastry before walking out. However, we got approached saying we had to either pour our drinks out into mugs or leave with our plastic to-go cups immediately. We at first thought an employee was just being rude to us but we looked up online and learned that in the last few years Seoul (or maybe all of South Korea) has made fineable offenses to establishments that serve plastic cups for folks eating in. This is in an effort to reduce waste in the country. This explained some of the mysteries we had earlier in the week like why a McDonalds would be serving drinks in glass cups.

We weren’t initially sure what we were going to spend the last day doing, but after some research decided to take a visit to the War Memorial of Korea. 

Like the Gyeongbokgung Palace, we arrived just in time to catch the daily entertainment outside the entrance of the museum. We had heard some pop music walking into the gates and weren’t exactly sure what was going on. They had the different groups performing different styles of dance and marches for the different military branches of Korea. The show lasts about 15 minutes and seems to just continuously recycle. We watched through to where we had started before heading into the museum to explore. 

The War Memorial of Korea supposedly opened in 1994 on the former site of the army headquarters to exhibit and memorialize the military history of Korea and it holds an exquisite collection and memorabilia of several past wars ranging from prehistoric times with very rudimentary weapons to two floors explaining with extreme detail on the Korean War and the ROK Armed Forces. They also include one section about how they have sent forces in more modern conflicts and South Korea’s presence as an ally in the UN. They are very proud that after being the country being helped in the 1950’s in their own brutal war, they have been able to since flourish and in turn return the favor to many other countries. As I had previously mentioned in an earlier post, history was not my strong point in school. I mostly learned enough to ace the exams but the info quickly left my brain post high school and college. It was a nice refresher to read the information on the Korean War since the DMZ visit and see just how far back Korea’s history goes. 

They had several military vehicles on the bottom floor of the museum and as well as outside. We realized after walking through that a lot of military equipment given to South Korea was done by the US while Russia and China supplied the North with most of their equipment. The museum noted that most of the old Soviet equipment is still in use by North Korea. In our DMZ tour earlier in the week Grant had asked our guide what happened to companies that had offices on either side of the DMZ and he noted both countries were poor and ravaged at the time and had no major companies. The country was so decimated by Japan in the early 1900’s (annexed by Japan in 1910), then after World War II the North/South divide was created in 1945 by the Allied countries and just 5 years later the country was at war again (the Korean War). When the Korean War started, North Korea (backed by Soviets and China) captured Seoul in just three days. The United States immediately acted, along with various UN counterparts, to help push them back North and the fight basically stale-mated for 2-3 years as the superpower countries helped pump more and more equipment, training, personnel, etc. into both sides. You can see in many of the pictures below the major equipment still has USA insignia. There were also a number of modern vehicles that proudly displayed “designed and made in Korea.”

After spending a few hours walking through the museum, we were ready for some dinner. Sebastian had given us his recommendation for the best bulgogi in town. And let me tell you, it was! So much so that Grant wanted to order another helping of it (but we didn’t). It was also some of the best kimchi we’ve had. We think they may have used the red pepper paste to help flavor it. The sides in Korea are unlimited so I was happy when the waitress supplied us with more kimchi. 

We initially were going to grab dessert around the area, but Grant wanted to check out this retro game bar in a different part of town. When we first arrived, we were the only ones besides the bartender. They had a Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox along with some card, board games, and arcade games. We tried to play a couple games on the Playstation and Switch but couldn’t get them to work so ended up playing a couple rounds of Jenga. As the night progressed, more people started showing up and the bartender helped to get the gaming systems up and running. We ended up playing Fifa Soccer (which we were terrible at), MarioKart along with Mortal Kombat and BombJack on the arcade machine.

After a few rounds of me mostly losing to Grant, we headed back to our place to rest before another early morning…this time to head to the airport for Vietnam. We were sad we were now able to count how many countries we had left on one hand but I was ready to leave the cold and head for some warmth. 

Actually taking a rest day! Our initial plan was to go hiking in the Bukhansan National Park. Unfortunately, Grant woke up with a sore throat that had gotten worse throughout the night. We decided to forego the hike for the day and sleep in. Afterwards, we grabbed some coffee at Banapresso and decided to use the day to catch up on the blog and organize the photos we had taken thus far in Seoul. At Banapresso we encountered a coffeeshop where you literally cannot order a drink from a human. An older Korean gentleman walked in and was so confused that he had to order from a screen that they kept pointing him to. Funny how you can pick up on what’s happening without understanding any words in our case. Banapresso also served really largely portioned drinks compared to most drinks we have seen around the world (comparable to US sized).

However, we did end the day by trying out a traditional Korean meal at a local spot recommended by Sebastian. I had told him I enjoy the sides at Korean BBQ restaurants and said we should try this place out as they serve many sides. Of course it was an interesting journey trying to find it as the name of the restaurant was in Korean on every sign outside on the street. We headed down a stairway and we were only able to recognize it from the sign we had seen in a picture on Google Maps. 

They had only one set menu and came out with a whole table top full of plates and bowls. Most of the sides we could recognize while some we were unsure of. We just told ourselves it was some sort of vegetable (especially if it was some sort of weird animal). Grant braved what looked like raw crab (since I’m allergic to shellfish) while I tried the raw octopus. We both covered them with a bunch of stuff so it would mask most of the taste, though I could definitely tell the chewiness of the octopus. We tried to scrape the meat off the whole fish they had given us, but I think we were both worried about getting a piece of bone so we ended up not eating it. We asked a server how to eat the fish and he (with one hand) used his chopsticks to slice the fish in half to expose the meat. It was amazing how skilled the locals are with chopsticks. It made us feel better when most of the locals still had food left sitting in the bowls and plates when they were finished. We were glad we experienced a traditional Korean meal but probably stick to the Korean BBQ we know. 

The next day Grant woke up feeling a bit better so we decided to get the hike in for that day. The national park is on the outskirts of the city so we had to metro about an hour north of where we were staying. Once there, it seemed like the clouds had gotten thicker and there was a cool breeze blowing. The day before would have been perfect weather wise, but at least Grant was feeling much improved. We quickly realized how well groomed the trail was along with being very well organized. They had stairs for the most part leading up the steepest portions of the hike, though I wasn’t sure if it was better climbing stairs or having some switchbacks to hike. In our week we also realized how well Korea is positioned for emergency preparedness – all subways have gas masks, fire extinguishers, etc. at every station and even the walking trails had defibrillators, first aid kits, and instructions on how to help someone having a medical emergency.

We took a longer route than initially planned as we couldn’t read the signs and following the trail map was also rough. But we were finally headed in the right direction of Baekundae Peak. Along the route, there were several gates (similar to the Heunginjimun Gate) that had been used during certain dynasty wars. Although we read after the entire wall was finished, they never needed to use it. When we could finally see the peak we were headed to, the air was definitely colder and windier as we went higher. We had reached a small landing area about 1km from the peak and decided to turn around as the fog had gotten thick. I think Grant was probably a little disappointed, but I was relieved as I figured we wouldn’t really see much of a view from the top. And it meant we could head back down to some warmth. 

The hike down was probably tougher as it was a steep rocky course to get to the bottom. As we got closer, we began hearing what sounded like music and some chanting. We didn’t realize there was a massive temple at the bottom of the trail. The trail wound right around a bunch of Buddhist monks doing some sort of prayer ceremony. We grabbed a couple of photos before walking down the road to the metro stop. All along the road were various Buddhist statues and monuments that locals would bow to as they walked by or through archways. One neat thing that the park had at the very end of the trail was a sort of vacuum blower to brush off any dust/dirt from your pants and shoes. We weren’t sure at first what they were and were nervous to push the giant red button, but figured it out once we saw locals come by and use them. 

That evening we were craving some comfort food (not like there was anything wrong with Korean food) and decided to try out Brick Oven New York Pizzeria. Turned out to be some of the best pizza we have had on this portion of the trip. Asia actually has more of an idea about pizza than most of the countries in Africa did. Seoul in particular had really good cuisines from all over the world. Afterwards, we walked around our neighborhood and realized we had missed out on a lot of food options this direction! We were craving some dessert and all the original places we had tried were already closing so ended up at Baskin Robbins. They had 100 flavors to choose from (most of which we had never heard of) and again we were the Americans taking forever to order at the kiosks. Wasn’t the best ice cream we’ve had but fulfilled the dessert craving for the night.

Since we stayed in the Gangnam district of Seoul, it was only fitting to go to the Gangnam statue and do the dance. I was originally going to just film Grant doing the dance, but a family from Malaysia offered to film the both of us. We didn’t realize until our last night that they have a stand that actually plays the song with the music video. 

We were conveniently right next to a mall so we headed in to try and find me some extra layers. Since we didn’t have to keep our weight under 15kg for our checked bags anymore, I was willing to buy a sweatshirt or something to be warm. We ended up finding a National Geographic store and grabbed a sweatshirt from there. We had learned during our Patagonia trek from a Korean we met that National Geographic is a big clothing brand in Korea, and we saw this first hand! We also realized the Discovery Channel is also a clothing brand here in Korea. After our mall pit stop, we grabbed some McDonald’s for a quick bite before we went and explored some palaces. We were shocked when we picked up our food at the counter and had our drinks in actual glassware. When people were done with their food/drinks, they would toss the liquid in the garbage and stack the glasses to get washed. 

We didn’t realize until getting to Gyeongbokgung Palace that most of the palaces in Seoul were closed on Mondays. Thankfully this one was opened for us to explore! There were so many tourists in the traditional palace gear and Grant said that they let you in for free if you wear it. (As we walked around through the nearby neighborhood I saw so many rental places. The rental fee, even for just a few hours, was more than the admission to the palace, so people were just doing it for fun!). When we arrived at the palace, I noticed an area in the middle was roped off and people were starting to congregate. Luckily for us, we came just in time to witness the changing of the guard. 

The palace was reportedly the main royal palace during the Joseon dynasty during the 15th century. Admittedly history is not my strongest subject and I hardly remember most of what I learned in school so most of any Asian history is lost on me, but still fascinating to read. However, the more we read throughout the palace grounds, the more we realized the tumultuous history Korea has had with Japan. Several of the buildings were burned down during the Japanese inquisition and were just recently rebuilt and renovated during the last 50 years. Walking through seeing all the ancient decor had us singing Mulan songs. Yes, I know wrong country but the decor and architecture is very similar! 

After exploring all of the palace grounds, we headed through Bukchon Hanok Village. We thought it was going  to be old village houses, but turned out to be a normal neighborhood with the occasional tea house you could walk through. So we headed down to the Myeongdong night market. We thought it was going to be like the night market we went through on the first night, but we were surprised when it was more of a shopping alley. There were still vendors on the streets selling food (we grabbed some sweet and sour chicken) but the main interest were the stores to stop in and shop. We found an MLB store and walked in. Turned out they really only cared about the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox, but there were hats, shoes and even purses for people to buy. It still amazes me how much American culture has an influence on the rest of the world! 

Tired and cold from walking all day, we asked one of the tourist volunteers where the best place to grab a drink was – they had people wearing red vests that were literally just volunteers that would talk to tourists and answer any questions. She gave us a couple of options and we chose a drunken rabbit themed bar. We ended up being the only customers at the time, but it felt nice to warm up and relax. We decided to end the night visiting the North Seoul Tower since we were so close. After a short walk up to the cable car entrance, we were at the base of the tower. Since we couldn’t yet get in to go up the tower, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at one of the nearby restaurants. Once finished, our ticket number was up and it was time to enjoy the sights at the top. Like Dubai, the city of Seoul is massive and seeing it from above just makes you realize how little we actually explored it. We snagged some photos of the view and then headed back to the metro for the ride back home. 

This was the day Grant had been looking forward the most during our visit in South Korea. Our guide, Sebastian (his Korean name was Tessic), picked us up from our place around 7:15 am and it was off to the DMZ area about 45km north of Seoul. 

Once we got to the DMZ, our guide was off to check us in while we grabbed some coffee and pastries. This is where we learned that it’s apparently common to have noodle dishes for breakfast as well, as we saw a lot of locals eating them. We knew it would be cold and rainy for the tour, but I was not fully mentally prepped for the temperatures. And in the midst of all our travels, the zipper on my coat broke off. Grant made fun of me as I had so many layers on between my coat, rain jacket, and smartwool top. (This became a theme throughout the week as the temps continued to stay chilly in Korea). 

After getting checked in, our guide told us our tour wasn’t until 10am so we had about 45 minutes to kill. We walked towards an old train track to see part of the route between North/South Korea that had been blown up during the Korean War. The train pictured below sat in the no-man’s land between the countries for some number of years before the South grabbed it and put it on display. This whole area was a bit eerie as you could still see bullet holes riddled in a lot of the structures in the direction of the North. Nobody has stepped foot in this plot of land for decades. As it was rainy, we sat in a small chapel area to wait out the time before we boarded our bus. Once on the bus, we were told by our guide that they did not allow tourists to take pictures from the bus, only at the stops. This is still an incredibly sensitive military area so they are very careful to try to avoid leaked images of the soldiers, guard stations, etc. He also said to have our passports at the ready as we would be going through a military checkpoint before entering the civilian area. 

Once through, it was off to our first stop, the Third Tunnel of Aggression.  This tunnel was found in 1978 and took about 4 months to locate where it was precisely, after their intelligence told them the North was trying to tunnel all the way to Seoul for a surprise attack (many years after cease fire was called). Our guide told us that they drilled holes into the ground and used PVC pipes to pour water down until one finally exploded with water shooting up into the air. The South Koreans built an intercepting tunnel that went about 73 meters into the ground that they let tourists go down and visit. We took a small train down into the tunnel which was very tight. You could literally touch the walls in the sides be above you. I didn’t think I was claustrophobic but heading that deep under the ground made me feel that way. There were no cameras allowed here as it’s technically a connecting tunnel into North Korea, but here’s an image found online:

Once down there, there are three small “chambers” in a line that were created that you can see from afar. Each country (North/South) has barbed wire / guarding up on each end, and then a center chamber is an absolute no-man’s land between. They have windows on them so we could see into the center chamber and at some point it seems as though someone planted ferns (or they naturally grew there somehow) and placed a super bright light. It sounded like the guides / South Koreans know nothing about what is beyond that chamber, as it is North Korean territory. Some more canned pictures from the Internet since we couldn’t bring anything:

There was an option to walk up the tunnel but our guide said it takes about 15 minutes to get back to the top and we had a short amount of time to visit the other sections. We realized the DMZ kept things on a strict timeline and only gave a short time to visit each stop. We watched a short video on how the DMZ came to be and their hopes of reuniting Korea once again. One interesting point we had not thought about was the portion discussing the flourishing wildlife in the DMZ. No human has stepped foot in this region for decades, meaning the trees and bushes have grown huge and wildlife have multiplied again.

We walked through a short museum showcasing various information about the four tunnels they found and a model displaying the entirety of the DMZ. From what we gathered, upon the South initially finding the tunnels, North Korea claimed the South made them and was trying to “frame” the North. However, there was evidence of drilled holes to blow dynamite in the direction of the South, which would not have been possible for the South Koreans to create. The North then accepted ownership of the tunnels but claimed they were trying to use to mine coal. However, the South Korean government showed there was no geographical likelihood of coal being in the area… plus the three tunnels were all facing Seoul from different starting points. There’s also believed to be over twenty tunnels that have yet to be discovered. As times have progressed our guide said that North Korea has other means to use for war (like long range missiles), so the government isn’t as concerned about tunnels anymore. Though the internet did say there is still a team devoted to finding them. 

We also learned in this museum that South Korea never actually had a representative that signed the cease fire agreement in 1953, and an actual treaty to this day has never been signed. The North Koreans and Chinese signed on their end, and various members of the UN (led by the US) signed on the other end, but South Korea did not partake in the agreement as they wanted to see the war finished out.

Our next stop was the Dora Observatory. Our guide took us straight up to the third floor to get an overhead view of the DMZ and a small glance into the North Korean side. The first visit to the top floor was cloudy and misty obscuring some of the view into North Korea. However, since our guide kind of rushed us through the bottom floors, we had time to spare to get a second glance. This time the clouds and fog had lifted a bit to get a more clear view. Sebastian told us that on a sunny day you can even see people walking in the city with the binoculars. He also pointed out one of the taller buildings has a lot of windows broken because the workers there are so unhappy (who knows if correct or not)! Although I don’t keep up with politics, especially world politics, it was kind of crazy being that close to North Korea. We later learned that the DMZ area had been closed to tourists the Wednesday and Thursday before we visited due to North Korea launching a missile (and they ended up launching another one later in the week while we were in the country). So they do close the area down when tensions are high. 

Our last stop of the tour was to visit the local village in the DMZ. There you could buy various DMZ labeled souvenirs and food along with some soy bean ice cream. We learned soy bean is one of the biggest crops they grow in this area and decided to try out the ice cream. It definitely had an interesting flavor but wasn’t terrible. We also tried a fish shaped ice cream sandwich containing vanilla ice cream and red bean paste. We’re not sure why they love red bean paste so much, but they fill it in a lot of desserts with some sort of cream. The ice cream sandwich was definitely better than the soy bean ice cream so I’m glad we saved it for last. 

After the tour was over, it was back to the visitors center for lunch. They had a couple of options from hamburgers and pizza to Korean food. We opted for the Korean food and both got the bibimbap which was probably the best we have both had, at least in a while. We learned that day that Sebastian had previously worked in the tech industry and retired when his mom got sick. While caring for her, he realized he wanted to get back into work and found his way into the tourism industry. He told us that they have to take a test and be proficient in English, history, and geography. His English was pretty good at least compared to the people we had met so far in Korea. He likes to be a tour guide because he says tourists are the happiest people on the planet since they’re not working.

Since the rain had stopped, Sebastian said the Gamaksan Suspension Bridge was open for visitors. We hopped back in the van (finally for some warmth) and drove about 30 minutes to the bridge. Korea has so many reminders of the war everywhere – this bridge was built on the site of a brutal battle the Koreans lost to the Chinese. They kicked off a project in the year 2000 to search for bodies and have recovered 10,000 of estimated 130,000 soldiers as of 2018. War history aside, supposedly this is the longest suspension bridge in Korea and I wish it wasn’t as cold that day so I could have enjoyed the view a little more. Instead, I quickly walked across it while Grant leisurely strolled across taking pictures of the view. After walking around the lake, we grabbed some coffee and it was back to Seoul. 

Once back at our place, we took some time to warm up before heading back out for food. I didn’t want to walk too far to find food so we ended up going around the corner to try the KFC. Throughout our travels KFC is by far the most highly represented American fast food chain in almost every country and we were yet to try one! We were so enthralled at all the different options they had to choose from at the kiosk that we held up the line. I had seen a sign for their soy sauce chicken so we grabbed one strip of that to try along with a wrap and sandwich to round out the meal. Tasted just like our KFC but the soy sauce chicken strip was definitely surprising. It kind of tasted like you just took a chicken strip and soaked it overnight in a bowl of soy sauce. 

We figured out our plans for the next day and headed off to sleep! 

Our second day in Seoul started with us sleeping in late. It’s crazy how much those travel days take it out of you even with some good sleep in business class! Plus the 5 hour time change doesn’t help either. Our plan was to just take it easy and relax before we headed to the DMZ the next day. But taking an easy rest day is something we struggle with…

Although there were plenty of Starbucks, Coffee Beans, and Dunkin’ Donuts to choose from, we decided to go with a local coffee shop to grab some caffeine to perk us up. This was our first time of this trip where we really had no idea what people were saying and communicating became entertaining throughout the week. Thankfully most menus had English along with it, but when Grant tried to ask the barista what a certain latte was they thought that was his order. I ended up with an Iced Cream Vanilla Latte, which turned out to be the best coffee choice of the week. Grant wasn’t sure what he got but it was good! With coffees in hand, we headed out towards downtown to explore a little bit. We decided it would be fun to walk around the city (even though they have a massive subway system…) and try to find the Gangnam statue. But when Grant realized the distance, we changed it to walking the bridge over the river (which was probably longer in mileage than we initially planned). One thing we found interesting about Seoul was that when you use Google Maps, it does not provide any sort of walking route like most other cities. So you can figure out a rough distance but it may not be correct if you need to take a very roundabout way around some city obstacle to get there, and you have no idea how long it will take other than trying to calculate it yourself.

After failing to find a lunch spot that we could agree on, we decided to try out the subway. That was an adventure in itself as well. According to Google Maps, there was a subway station about 1/2 mile away from us so we decided to hop on the subway there. However, the map said it was across a busy street with what looked like no way of getting there. We took some stairs down under the road onto the river trail and walked in the direction of the station. We could see it above us and tried using a stairway to head to it, however, it was covered in trash and barbed wire so that clearly was not an entrance. We watched the station sit empty long enough that we started to think maybe it wasn’t even an active station. As we started another 1/2 mile walk to a different station we saw a train pull into our mystery station and so we decided to try to find the entrance one more time. We walked back to the original street we were on and followed some locals hoping that would lead us to the right spot. We realized during our time in Korea that if you walk just a tad bit further, you’re likely to find the place that you are looking for. Turns out we had to duck around an unassuming corner and go down some stairs in the opposite direction of the station to get into it… but we found it!

Once at the station, we had to buy our rail cards but surprisingly the Seoul subway system only takes cash payments to pay and reload the cards. We grabbed our cards and headed towards the train. In Seoul, each ride was 1250 Won which amounts to basically $1! Probably the cheapest metro system either one of us had been on! They would add an additional 500 Won occasionally depending on how many transfers you make, but still that only added about 38 cents. The other cool thing about the subway system was they played a little jingle to let you know the train was close. It took a couple of times to realize when they would start the music so I could finally get it on video. 

Grant had read about a popular tourist street (Insadong Street) with local street vendors and shopping so we headed in that direction to check it out. There were so many different types of food vendors selling some cream filled fish shaped pastry, chicken, mochi, kabobs, and even the crazy seafood of octopus and squid. They loved fish shaped things, even when there was no fish involved. We also saw the Squid Games honeycomb treats (the ones with a pattern you need to cut out with a needle)… but I have never seen Squid Games so I took Grant’s word for it. We ended up trying sugar coated strawberries and grapes on a stick. It wasn’t too bad, but was a little weird eating warm sugar coated fruit. After our quick snack, we realized how hungry we were for some actual food since we had missed lunch. We’re pretty good at only eating about one actual meal a day during these travels. The one thing we didn’t realize here in Seoul was that most places have a break time, usually from 3:00-5:00pm. As it was only 4:30, we tried to find a place that was opened in the shopping center next to us. Grant was really craving some bulgogi so we decided to kill some time and head to the Korean BBQ restaurant we had seen earlier on the street. 

The restaurant had a set menu and whatever you ordered would be shared between the group. Thankfully I enjoy bulgogi as well so it was no issue having to share. We ordered some drinks to go along with our meal not realizing how large the bottles would be. I ordered some fruit soju (a Korean vodka) while Grant ordered a beer. This is where we learned that ordering fruit soju often means you’re ordering an entire bottle of 14% alcohol drink. We ended up helping each other out to finish the bottles so needless to say both of us were definitely feeling the alcohol by the end of the meal. But the best part of the meal was our food getting delivered to us by a robot! Though our waitress was the one that cooked our food in front of us, but it was still a neat concept to see at a restaurant. 

Grant had messaged our guide for the DMZ if there was anything that we should see on a Saturday night in Seoul and he recommended one of the local night markets that ended up being nearby. I had seen videos and pictures of people visiting these, but I didn’t realize how packed they would be until we went there. There were vendors and stores on both sides of the street along with down the middle of the walkways, leaving little room for people to pass on both sides. And all the weird stuff you could imagine for people to eat were just hanging out in tanks or spread out on tables. So many menus offering chicken feet, squid, octopus, beef liver, etc. I had told Grant we should be adventurous and try something new, but after that meal both of us were too full (and also too afraid we may puke, especially seeing what huge portions of potentially gross things they served!). But was definitely worth seeing in person. When we asked our guide the next day if he liked some of the more “obscure” items he just said, “Eww” so we learned that not everyone enjoys these foods.

Afterwards, we ended up at Heunginjimun Gate, which was built in 1398, and walked part of the stairs next to the fortress walls. We later found out that the wall is around 18km long and surrounds the four peaks in Seoul. We were able to see just how far it stretched around the city later on when we visited the Namsan (N. Seoul) Tower. After a short walk, we ended the night at Southside Parlor. Grant had found this bar on the internet and read that it was a Texas themed bar and knew we had to visit. As soon as we walked in we were greeted with the Texas flag and they had Texas inspired drinks. You could definitely tell they were catering to the Westerners, but the one Texas thing they didn’t include was country music. I think this was the first country we didn’t hear American country music in, believe it or not! 

We enjoyed a couple drinks along with chips and queso before heading home to sleep since we had an early morning tour to the DMZ. Some rest day we had, huh!

Our 9-hour flight to Seoul seemed to fly by in business class! I changed out of the jeans I was wearing and into the pajama pants they give you to be comfier during the flight. We were greeted with a beverage when we first sat down and enjoyed a small snack after take off before it was lights out. As soon as I laid the seat down, I was out! I only woke up to use the restroom and the next thing I knew the flight attendant was waking me up for breakfast, meaning there was only two hours left. Grant and I both chose the omelet with some collard greens, tomato, and sausage along with some fruit and a smoothie. It was kind of sad this was our last business class flight for the trip, but was definitely worth the experience! 

Landing in Seoul, we had to stop by and fill out a health declaration form and get our temperature scanned before heading into customs. This was our first real COVID check besides just checking our vaccine card, which the surprising thing though is Seoul never checked our vaccine card. We breezed through customs and grabbed our luggage before determining the best transportation to take to the Airbnb. Our Airbnb host said to take the airport bus to the apartment as it is the most convenient. They have quite the “Airport Limousine (bus)” set up in Seoul. There were probably over 20 different bus lines to take and they were nice coach buses. Our first note of South Korea was the mask culture. We looked up on the internet that they just ended the indoor mask requirement and now only required them on public transportation. Grant read in an article that 2/3 of Koreans are not happy about the lift and will continue to wear a mask indoors (and many outdoors still as we saw) for the foreseeable future. The other thing we noted before our hour and a half bus ride was how everyone waited in a single file line at the bus stop. We noticed this everywhere throughout the week in the city at bus stops and in the metro – Korean culture was very orderly.

As the bus driver only spoke in Korean, it was hard to note which stop was actually ours. We got off one too early and had to figure out where we were located on the street. We quickly found out how busy the streets were on a Friday night at 7:30pm. Our apartment was in the “Gangnam” district of the city (remember the song “Gangnam Style?”) which we learned was one of the trendier parts of the city full of lots of nightlife. With our bulky backpacks, we meandered the street trying to figure out how to distinguish our building since we couldn’t remotely read the Korean letters. Thankfully it was just a few minutes down the road from where we were and we at least got to acquaint ourselves a bit to what was around us.

Once we found the building, we made our way up to the 19th floor and into the room. We dropped our bags off in the room and figured out a close restaurant to grab dinner, which ended up being a local ramen place. Our waiter gave us some tea and when he realized we only spoke English, had his coworker come and take our order. Since it was only in Korean, we tried using the Google Translate app that didn’t work too well and so we ended up just pointing to one and hoping for the best. And turned out to be some really good ramen! Better than the ramen we had in Cape Town (go figure). After dinner we went straight to bed to get some rest after a long travel day! 

Our last day in the city! We grabbed a quick workout in the morning in the apartment building before packing up and heading to the Dubai Mall yet again. This time it was to store our luggage so we could explore a couple more things in the city before our late night flight to South Korea. Once we finally found the luggage concierge, we grabbed a quick bite and some coffee before we were off to the metro. The metro system in Dubai is incredible and so clean! There’s no eating and drinking allowed (or you pay a fine) and there is a separate car for women and children. We learned this earlier in the week as Grant and I boarded it one day. Thankfully a nice lady told him he should move to the next car before he gets fined 100 Durham. There were two other guys in the car as well that eventually made their way to where we were.

We did our first stop at the Museum of the Future to get some pictures of the outside of the building. We initially were going to go through it, but we read some reviews that said it wasn’t worth the money. And thankfully we decided to skip as the line was long to get in. We grabbed some photos of the building and made a quick pit stop at the bathroom before getting back on the Metro to see the Dubai Frame. 

Of course the day we decided to do a bunch of walking around the city, it’s the hottest it’s been all week. The walk to the frame was about 15 minutes from the metro station with little shade. Our plan initially was to just take pictures of the frame, but since the entry fee was cheap, we decided it was worth it to get into some AC. And I’m glad we did! It was a neat experience to walk through and go across the top of the frame. It offered a great view of the Burj Khalifa along with the city of Dubai. We didn’t realize how big the city actually was until we saw it from that view! They also had a glass walkway that would become opaque before clearing to offer a view below. It is still kind of eerie to walk across stuff like that as it gives you a sense you might fall through it!

Then it was back to the Dubai Mall to grab our bags and head off to the airport. Our Abu Dhabi guide told us it was faster to take the metro since we would just be sitting in traffic for most of the drive in a taxi. I was not looking forward to this as we had experienced rush hour on metro the other day and adding on our big backpacks would just add to the body-to-body crowd. There were a couple of claustrophobic moments but thankfully the crowd died down the closer we got to the airport.

Our flight to Qatar was another quick one (once they finally realized a couple passengers never actually checked in). Since we had about two hours to burn while waiting for our flight to Seoul, we explored the airport a little bit. Tim had told us previously that there was a rainforest in the airport so Grant wanted to go check it out. I initially wanted to head to the FIFA store for my nephew so wasn’t too thrilled about going to see some rainforest. And I may have gotten the “How often are we here? Can we just enjoy this for a minute” comment from Grant… But I will say it was cool to see. It was small and had rainforest sounds playing in the background.

Our next stop in the airport was the FIFA store as we had seen they were having a huge sale during our first layover. I called our FIFA-fan nephew Connor since he was just out of school at the time (since it was around 11pm in Qatar) to show him what the store had. We grabbed a couple souvenirs and headed to experience the first class lounge that came with our business class tickets. We enjoyed a couple drinks and before we knew it, it was time to head to our gate and head off to South Korea!

Our last full day in Dubai started off with an 8:15 am pickup from the tour guide to head to Abu Dhabi. We joined another couple already in the car from Faroe Islands (small island just north of the UK). Our guide, Mark from the Philippines, struggled to get out of the pickup lane in front of our Airbnb as two cars were parked in front of him and there wasn’t enough room for his van to go around. He asked the valet for help several times and started to back out of the drive, but another smaller car was parked to the side. One of the workers ended up having the keys to the smaller car this whole time as our guide was struggling back out of the drive. He took it upon himself to grab the keys and move the car forward to give himself. However, once we got out of the one lane, he got stuck behind another two cars. He again took it upon himself (as he wasn’t getting any help from the valet staff) to kindly ask the taxi to move out of the way. The whole scene was quite entertaining to watch. He told us that is the hard part about driving in Dubai is there’s so many different cultures driving here, so you have to get used to 200 different driving styles – he assured us his Filipino style was aggressive.

Once we finally left our place, we picked up the last couple (who was from Austria) and headed the hour and a half to Abu Dhabi. On the way, our guide told us a little history about Dubai and said a lot of the buildings we see today are less than 10 years old and is continuing to grow every year. He said not that long ago there was nothing around the Burj Khalifa which we just couldn’t believe so fact checked on the Internet and were amazed to see the below:

Our guide also said that their oil in Dubai is starting to run out, relatively speaking, so they turned to tourism to diversify their money. We later read more on the internet and turns out that Abu Dhabi has most of the oil reserves for UAE, but the leader of Dubai knew back in the 1970s that they should diversify their investments as the money made from oil was likely to run out for future generations. If you read a little bit about Dubai, you’ll learn that they have a high goal of trying to receive over 40 million annual visitors by 2031. Crazy! But after visiting here, we can see how they could possibly achieve this feat. 

Our first stop was The Grand Mosque. Even from the highway you could tell how massive the mosque was and how ornately decorated it was. They definitely are flashier here in every type of architecture from the skyscrapers to the mosques. Once we parked, we walked through basically a mini mall to get to the entrance of the mosque. Thankfully we had previously visited Hagia Sofia so we knew to bring a headscarf for me to cover my hair. Sharon, the Austrian, had to rent an abaya that looked more like a Harry Potter cloak. I’m not sure if we were running behind on our timetable, but our guide rushed us through the mosque only stopping to allow us time for a few quick photos. Grant and I forgot during our first picture together that it is culturally offensive to show PDA in public (aka touch each other for a photo). It’s just natural for us to wrap an arm around each other. Our guide quickly reminded us not to do that before anyone noticed, and then he took our picture. The mosque was beautiful from top to bottom and the inside of every dome was different. It was hard to truly capture them on camera. Their main room had three beautiful chandeliers and a hand sewn carpet from over 1,200 weavers in Iran that took over a year and a half to make.

Once all the pictures had been taken, we headed off to the Emirates Palace. Turns out it was featured in the Sex and the City movie. The beach (featured below) and The Etihad Towers nearby were also featured in the Fast and Furious 7 movie. It was a nice hotel, but both of us were unsure why the stop was made because we just did a quick walk around the building and left.

Then it was off to the Heritage Village where we got to see an example of the houses they used to live in near the bay. I wish we would have been able to stay for a little longer to read more about their history, but again our guide rushed us through in about 20 minutes so we could end our trip at Ferrari World. 

If you don’t know about Ferrari World (like I did not), it is an amusement park again attached to a mall featuring the fastest rollercoaster in the world. (Like I said they like to own the biggest and best here!) The rollercoaster, Formula Rossa, goes from 0 to 149 mph in just 4.9 seconds. They claim riders feel 1.8 Gs during acceleration and a total of 4.8 throughout the entire ride. I love rollercoasters, but I was a little nervous about this one. And let me tell you by the end of the ride, I was so glad it was over. To me, it felt like 1.5 minutes of my brain rattling in my skull. As you can see in the picture, only one of us truly enjoyed it. My head was pounding afterwards and lasted pretty much throughout the rest of the day. As soon as it would start to wane, we would ride another rollercoaster and it would start the headache all over again. For you migraine sufferers, I’m so sorry if that’s what you go through! But besides the headache from the ride, it was a cool experience. We realized you definitely need more than 3 hours to truly experience all it has to offer, but the tour was easier than going through the hassle of renting a car for just a day. 

As we were heading out of Ferrari World, we made a quick stop by Clymb so Grant could see their indoor skydiving tunnel. I’ve seen a couple iFly spots and this tunnel definitely beats them in size by a lot! This one is (you guessed it) the world’s largest indoor skydiving tunnel. Grant was definitely disappointed he couldn’t hop in the tunnel to experience it, but was glad to see it – see pictures below for a comparison of the tunnel he is used to skydiving in. Leaving the mall with the group, we made a quick pit stop to see the Formula 1 track they have in Abu Dhabi. I don’t know too much about Formula 1 but it was cool to see the track and see some of the cars they let tourists drive around. 

Then it was back to Dubai…in rush hour traffic. Thankfully we’re so used to this in LA that we weren’t bothered by it. Our guide pointed out some license plates and noted that you can tell how rich someone in UAE is by the number of digits on their license plate. The fewer the digits, the more wealthy they are – as buying up really expensive license plates is supposedly a status symbol. We looked up the world’s most expensive license plates later and to no surprise, a heavy percentage are in UAE.

Once back at the Airbnb, we grabbed some food from the market and enjoyed time outside on our deck to enjoy the last nightlight view of the city. 

Surprisingly in our almost 6 year relationship, Grant and I have never done a water park together. Our family enjoyed going to our local waterpark (NRH2O) every year so I was excited to go again at one of the “largest water parks in the world,” especially in March. Dubai’s Atlantis Aquaventure water park has a couple of Guinness World Records including:

• Worlds largest number of water slides in a waterpark (50 slides)
• Worlds tallest water slide (Odyssey of Terror)
• Longest family rafting water coaster (Shockwave)
• World’s first dueling water coaster slide (Medusa’s Lair)

We started out at Neptune’s Tower which had the Leap of Faith slide. Any Amazing Race fans will recognize this as the water slide at Atlantis that one of the contestants (Mika) refused to go down. The slide has a steep drop and then goes through a tunnel within the shark lagoon before exiting (yes, real sharks). The slide was fun and I really tried to keep my eyes open to see the sharks, but it was dark in some parts and water splashed all in my eyes so I just had to keep them closed most of the ride. (Sorry we don’t have many pictures/videos from the day, but I put in YouTube clips from others to get an idea of what the slides entail!)

All of their water slide’s definitely had a thrill factor to them, even the tube ones. My favorite one of the day would probably be the Poseidon’s Revenge. Grant likened it the pneumatic tube systems at a bank. We stepped into tube while standing on a platform. They gave us a 3-2-1 countdown before the platform dropped and we were plummeting down to the ground in a drop that starts completely vertical – you feel it on your body when the slide starts to level out from vertical.

Grant’s favorite slide was the Blackout Slide. It’s nicknamed the “scarier sister of the Leap of Faith”. It takes you through a series of winding tunnels before it has a vertical drop that sends you flying towards the end. We definitely got bumped a few times in the booty during all these rides, but it was worth it! Probably the best water park either one of us have been to. We definitely forgot how much the sun and  walking around the water park can drain your energy. Plus with all these tall water slides, there were so many stairs to climb – we told ourselves we got our appropriate exercise in for the day via all the stairs!

By 5 pm we were ready to head back to our room and relax. The water park is at the far end of what they call the Palm Jumeirah so we had to take their monorail to the city tram and then hop over to the metro line in order to get back. The Palm Jumeirah is a totally manmade island that looks just like a palm tree from high up. We didn’t realize we had hit rush hour traffic on the metro, but it got more crowded the closer we got to our stop. We watched as one couple had to push their way out yelling “Excuse me!” at the stop before ours so I knew ours was going to be a push as well. As soon as the metro stopped at our station, I shoved my way forward taking a quick glance over my shoulder to see if Grant was following before stepping out of the doors. It was a wild experience and probably the busiest metro I had ever been on!

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the mall which was the closest metro stop and then headed off to bed early as we knew the next day would be another long one exploring Abu Dhabi.