All Around Seoul

Most of Kristine’s and my days were spent relaxing at home and just chatting with each other. I saw a lot of things, but I think you could spend 2-3 months in Seoul going to a museum a day and not run out of things to do. I highly recommend going, but you might want to go with a guide, as it was extremely difficult to figure my way around (mostly when I wanted to eat) without someone who spoke/understood Korean. As my first time in Asia, (check that off bucket list!) it was a good introduction. I, of course, still want to explore more!

a view from the top of a hill.

IPark Mall

Ginormous mall, complete with cinema. We spent our first day out here exploring and going to a movie. And trying not to drown in the down pour. We ate at California Pizza kitchen and starbucks (they are as prevalent here are they are in America). It was fun to wander around and try to figure out how to get to places, the movie theater opens before the rest of the mall, but here not every shop has their own door, so we kept wandering in different stores to be kicked out trying to find the movie theater. We watched Magic in the Moonlight, it was cute and fun.

National War Museum (Aug 24^th)

This place was amazing. It is three floors of exhibits and free to go to. There are also outside planes and tanks and things to go in/climb on.

Inside it had royal history/time of fighting between the different dynasties, the Korean War, UN peacekeeping missions, and futuristic war.

My Pap-Paw fought in the Korean War, so it was special to see the way they represented the war. What came across the most was how thankful they were for the UN’s support against the North/Communists. I didn’t know a lot about the war, but it was tastefully done. However, someone was happy to play with the special effects and they had a lot of different video/animated things to watch. They had a whole room dedicated to uniforms and information about the UN countries that helped.

The Drop- dogtags of everyone who died in the war.

However, they did like to proselytize/propagandize the history and make the North out to be devils that had no consciousness. An example: the north tried to unscrupulously gain a better position for negotiations, while the UN troops honorably held unto their positions.” We were supposed to be able to go to two museums this day, but I was so entranced that kept us to just visiting this one!

In case you wanted to know what would happen if a nuke was dropped on Seoul (as big as the one that hit Hiroshima. Hint: it's not pretty. 

Gyeongbokgung (August 26^th)

 This was the 1^st palace to be built in the Joseon Period (one of the ruling families). It is almost entirely rebuilt since the Japanese and the North Koreans destroyed it during their occupations, but it has been beautifully rebuilt as a tourist destination. To call it a palace requires a re-thinking of our western ideas. It is one one building, but rather a series of smaller building spread throughout. They also had the Korean Folk Museum here (I think you can get to it without going through the palace, but I’m not sure). It was interesting to see the stuff they had, and free to get into. According to Lonely Planet “It has three main exhibition halls covering the history of the Korean people, the agricultural way of life and the life of yangban (upper class) during the Joseon era.”

 They had a “pantry” of sauces that was outside, and back in the day, they had special servants whose sole job was to make sauce. That was it. We also got to see the changing of the guards, which was interesting. I feel sorry for them though, they wear period dress, and it was HOT!

National Museum of Korea (August 27^th)

Shows of Korea’s national treasures from ancient prehistory to ceramics to donated goods. It took me almost 2 hours to walk it all, including a snack break at one of the not overpriced cafes! It was interesting, and some of the things were beautiful, but not knowing the history of Korea, it was a little difficult to follow. About ½ way through I figured out you could get an audio guide…

Itaewon (almost every day we went out)

Shopping and food district. They had lots of American food places as well as other ethnic food. We just wandered around here a few times/on our way home.

Namsang Tower (August 28^th)

This is a great place to get panoramas of Seoul, if you can see past the smog from China. (thanks environmental externatilities!) There is a Coldstone and a few not over priced restaurants. If you spend $20 to go up to the observatory deck, it rotates as do three overpriced restaurants.

We saw a “flash mob” proposal to that “I’m bored so lets get married” song. It was cute, the girl was crying when she figured it out. He gave her a bunch of shoes, which none of us understood. But if you find a random Korean youtube video (cuz they were taping it) where the girl is in a blue dress with a white top, I’ll be in the background!

Shopping Street (unknown name)

Kristine and I went to a shopping street once to just go shopping and ended up finding a Cat Café. Where there are about 20 cats just wandering around the place and you drink coffee. It was interesting and I got my cat fill (hopefully enough to last until I get my kitty in December). All of us also went here on 8/20 for dinner (street food) and wandering.

Eating and Drinking

After the war museum Kristine and I met up with Hyun and a few of his friends from work to drink magkoli, or Korean Rice Wine. It was yummy! We only had the flavored ones there, I had a wine flavored one! It was in a gigantic goblet, totally full.

A few times we went to Mister Pizza, a pizza chain, that has REAL pizza!

Once we went to a Korean drinking place, where you mostly drink and eat anju or side dishes for drinking. I’m not sure what exactly they ate, because Korean food is not conducive to being a vegetarian. But I had a yummy salad and soju cocktail. I know this might be sacrilegious, but soju tasted like quality vodka to me. Loved the cocktail though- it was kiwi flavored.  

Another time, we ate street food and I had bimbop (sp?) which was fried veggies and egg and rice. It was yummy! I’m not exactly sure what I was eating, but the waitress assured Hyun it was vegetarian so I ate it. Trust I say. Trust. (Aug 20^th)

I even got to go to the 4^th best restaurant in Seoul- Gusto’s Tacos (but I went to the one on base). They had tofu tacos and are run by a couple from NY. They are a bit spicy. (I say a bit because my mouth was on fire, but normal people have a better spice tolerance than I do.)

Hyun hosted 2 North Korean high school students as part of an Embassy program for the night, and we went and got Baskin Robbins. Pretty sure they didn’t have 31 flavors there, but they had a lot!

Amigos Tacos- they made mushrooms taste yummy! Hard to believe. This was the 2^nd day I was in town- and needed Mexican food after dropping my passport off at the Visa Center for Russia.

I even got falafels one day! And they spoiled me with American food that they can get on base. J J

See you around the globe!

Road Trip Day 3: Sarajevo

Guess how our day started? With burek and yogurt for breakfast of course! This burek was so delicious, it was made with zucchini! This will be a type that I will make when I am back home. Then we set off to explore. We wandered down around the river (just to look at it) There were a lot of police out today and we were a little nervous until we realized that there was a marathon going on that day! Whew! We found an awesome bridge to walk over  and basically take pictures of the river. Jen and I had set out for a museum day, and we succeeded!

Our first stop of the day was the National Museum. We thought it would be cooler than it was, but not so much. There was 2 rooms full of old Roman ruins. There was a little book in a special locked room that we couldn’t figure out what it was because there was no signs. Turns out that it is Sarajevo Haggadah (a Jewish book of rites) It was made around 1314 in Spain. We then wandered around in the botanical garden, which would have made a beautiful wedding backdrop, by the way. We wandered into the Natural History Museum (which is part of the complex and covered by the same museum ticket). I really don’t like these places, but when they are included in other tickets, I look at them because randomly there are non creepy ones. Maybe it is the ethical person in me, but all the dead carcasses around a room in glass cases just staring at you with dead eyes. *shiver* This one was only slightly less than normal creepy. But they had a bunch of random crabs and things in there rather than your typical dead mammals (which they had as well). There was also the ethnographical museum, which had really cool wooden architecture! It was set up like an old Ottoman house, complete with models in clothing, in a really informative way!

Our next stop was right next door, the History Museum. No joke, that is its name. This one was really interesting (although frigid!). It had a bit of history from olden times to Yugoslavia, but its main focus was on the siege. Throughout the day, you can’t escape the knowledge that the siege took place. There are bullet holes and destroyed buildings everywhere. One thing I kept thinking about was “why? Why would they do it? How can you justify cutting off a city for four years? How can you justify bombing schools instead of military targets? What justification can you even use? What was the point?” The siege is the longest siege of a capita city in the history of modern warfare. The Serb forces surrounded the city from 5 April 1992 to Feb 1996. The casualties are totaled at 11,154 people. (They just had a memorial for them recently.) It just took your breath away. The utter senselessness of it. There was the main museum floor and a temporary photo exhibition of photos taken during the war. Heart wrenching. I think more than anything it was the knowledge that this took place while I was alive. That the atrocities were happening when I was blissfully unaware playing as a small child in Southern California. Had I been born there instead of in the US, I might not have been alive today.

After that, Jen and I decided to venture out to the Tunnel Museum. We weren’t 100% sure we were heading in the right direction, but the map provided free of charge to the tourist told us to hop on a tram, then a bus, so that is what we did. I proceeded to leave my umbrella on the tram, but luckily it didn’t rain the rest of the time we were there! Once we were on the bus, we realized we didn’t know what to do once we got off the bus or exactly what stop to get off on. Out came the Lonely Planet pdf guide on my Evo (thanks Mama!). IT told us to ride to the end of the bus line (that should be obvious right?) cross the bridge, turn left and walk 600 meters. Which we did, even though we weren’t really sure what 600 meters was. They should say to the last house on the right! But not to difficult to find. This house was so full of bullet holes I am surprised it was still standing. When we got there, the guy who answered the door spoke a little English, and I told him I didn’t speak Bosnian, but a little Macedonian. He ushered us into the movie viewing room, underground. We sat on ammunition boxes and watched a chilling 20 minute video (at least that is how long they say it is, it went by much faster). It was news reels and home video of the siege. I tried finding something online for you to watch, but could not. After the video, the guy told us to walk through the little bit of tunnel that is still open and then go into the museum. (the tunnel was filled in to support the heavier airport traffic as planes increased.) We did. I couldn’t stand up straight unless I was in between the tracks and not where the beams of support were. And apparently it often had water in it.

The tunnel was built to supply the city with food and supplies. It was their only lifeline to the outside world. They had pipes going through of diesel, gas, electricity, and TV cables. When we went through the museum, the guy who had been showing us around, kept pointing things out. Then he said, “That helmet there was mine.” Not only does he help run this museum, but he worked in the tunnel. And made it. Every day he drove a truck from the tunnel, up into the mountains on curvy roads with no headlights to supply people up there. Every day. He pointed out the truck to us. We asked if we could take our picture with him and the truck and he was more than happy to do so. He then offered to take us back down into the city because he had to go where we were going. Of course we said yes! He pointed out various buildings and said what had happened to them during the war. It turns out he has a daughter who was 11 during the war. His family all made it through.

After he dropped us off, we went to get lunch! Jen had a kebab and I had, wait for it…burek! (By this point I was done with burek, like isn’t there anything else vegetarian in the world? Really?!!) Then we wandered around old town taking pictures and buying souvenirs.  We found some of the best souvenirs of all time here- basically just hand made personalized things rather than mass produced in China things. (I wish Skopje would do more of this, I would seriously spend more money in Skopje then!) As in we bought so much that I had to go to the ATM 3 times that day! (given I wasn’t pulling out much at a time, but still it became a bit of a joke…)

Catholic Church

Orthodox Cathedral



the eternal flame  for WW2 victims. Yes he is lighting a cigarette on it.

Then we headed back to the hostel to write our postcards and relax a bit before dinner. We all went out for dinner but couldn’t decide on a place. We wandered for about 30 minutes before going back to the place right next to the place Aryn, Justin and I ate at on Friday. So delicious! Lentil soup, fried dough, shopska salad and house wine of course! It was nice to sit and chat with everyone and see how their days had gone differently.  After a relaxing paced dinner, we went back and went to sleep!

9-11 Memorial Day

Today we remember.

We remember where we were, what we were doing, how we talked to, and how we coped.

We remember what we lost and those who lost all.

We remember those who gave all to help others and those who first stood up to terrorism in Pennsylvania.

We also note what has changed. Never will we walk into an airport without remembering what has changed in our lives. The security that we roll our eyes at now, that we gripe and complain when we have to take our shoes off or not take liquids in.

We gave up some of our rights to feel safe, and many wonder now- did we do the right thing? It is my belief that we will never know the answer to that to satisfy everyone who asks.

On 9-11-2001, I did not cry. I was in 7^th grade and didn’t know how this would change my life. I remember a teaching telling me that the attacks could not happen in the US and to return to my seat so we could get on with class when I asked him to turn on the TV to check the news.

When I try to explain to people how much I feel my life has changed only those who are in my age group seem to truly understand. It is hard to explain when the world changes when you are 12 how much you change with it. How much you accept other information or absorb it different than an adult. Yes planes crashed in to the World Trade Center (which , by the way- I didn’t know what they were or where they were), the Pentagon, and a field in PA- but I never thought that terrorism could happen in the US. I mean we had Pearl Harbor and the War for Independence- but those were so long ago.

Then came the question: why? Why did they do it? What did those people do to make those terrorists made? Why did (do) they hate America?

Then later came the more difficult answers: Because they hate what America stands for, and Americans because of their government. They wanted to make a statement. The people had done nothing.  But these were hard to understand in 7^th grade. Now I grasp that it is even more complicated than any of the answers provided to me back then.

I will never comprehend why it happened.

But I will never forget.

So that is why today I participated in a Memorial Walk sponsored by the US Embassy here in Skopje. Me- someone who actively would drive or take a bus to avoid walking. But this event was life changing.

The t-shirts had a logo on them that has a word I think sums up the American response and my personal feelings.

Something they can’t take away from us:

Resilience