Exploring Seoul (The Rest of Day 1)

After I wrote this blog post, we decided to try and get a second wind so that we wouldn't mess up our sleeping schedule by going to bed at two in the afternoon! We headed back to the 3-story coffee shop and let the caffeine work its magic. We sat at the top and enjoyed some people watching and a bagel.

Our plan was to go to Insadong Market, the one we skipped earlier. We were basically forcing ourselves to do something so that we would stay awake long enough to make it to a decent bed time. 

We decided we should get some food first, though, so we went to a Chinese restaurant at the the top of Hyundai Department Store. We had eaten at an Indian restaurant there the other day that was a-maz-ing. 

Our main reason for wanting to eat at this Chinese place was that there was a great view of the mountains. Unfortunately, the hostess seated us in this little area with a view of purple flower wallpaper instead. We felt too shy to ask to sit somewhere else. Oh well. 

We ordered sweet and sour pork to share. Ryan used the chopsticks, and I used a spoon. Some of the pieces of pork we a bit big so I was cutting them in half with the side of my spoon. The wait staff must have felt bad for me because one of them quickly and slyly brought this "utensil" over to help:

LOL! I decided I was okay with being the "weird American" for this meal, so I stuck to cutting the pork with the side of my spoon. (See the wallpaper in the background? Niiice.)

Next we headed to Insadong Market. Getting to the correct subway station was easy, but finding the market was not. We had to... dun Dun DUN (scary music)... ask for directions!!! This can be scary in a foreign country because you have to risk potentially awkward and confusing situations (i.e. language barriers). 

Which random stranger shall we choose to be the victim of our attempt? Ryan thought maybe we could ask the guy selling DVDs down the road, but by the time we got there, he was gone. Then Ryan spotted the one other white guy in the crowd and decided to ask him. Success! Except his Korean wife was actually more helpful to us. Go figure. 

Okay, so we found the market. It was a cool area and had nice stuff, but all the stuff we liked was super expensive and seemed difficult to transport safely overseas. We bought one little thing and called it quits (after many more hours of walking and exploring). 

We stopped in a tea shop on the way back to the subway. We need to rest and the atmosphere looked amazing. There were cool lights and fresh flowers everywhere.

(Sorry, that's the best picture we got.)

Ordering was awkward (language barrier again). We decided on peppermint tea (my favorite). Looking at the menu, we couldn't tell if we were ordering a pot of tea or a cup of tea. Looking at the price ($6), we figured it must be a pot of tea so we asked for two glasses. The server was super confused, but managed to figure out what we wanted and confusingly complied. 

So she brought us one CUP of tea (not a pot) with an extra empty cup (which we didn't use). Oh man. Embarrassing. What was more embarrassing, however, is the fact that I had no idea what to do with this cup of tea! There was a cover over it, and when I picked up the cover there were tiny bits of mint leaves everywhere! 

Was I supposed to drink/eat the mint leaves? I was so confused. Then we realized that the leaves were steeping in the water, and there was another part of the cup that came off. Eventually, the server came over and took the top part with the leaves off for me. Whew! And in case you don't know what a $6 cup of tea looks like, here's the last of it:

We figured we must be paying for the atmosphere (which was lovely), or maybe tea is really expensive in Korea?

Anyway, we went back to our hotel after tea and crashed. It's the next morning as I write this, and I am SORE! We figured we must have walked at least 10 miles throughout the day, which included one million stairs and two whole markets. Whew! What a day! We'll be out and about again today so I'll be sure to update again later!