Our flight left Chicago at 1:00 a.m. Thursday (overnight Wednesday for practical purposes) and arrived in Seoul 14 hours later at 5:00 a.m. Friday Seoul time. Before we left, so many people commented on what a pain they suspected it would be to make such a flight with a 3 year old in tow. Needless worry. Ned is a better traveler than me. She slept on the way to the airport and then woke up when we got there at 11:oo p.m....and stayed awake until 3:00 a.m. (I guess she heard me when I told people how Asiana serves steak on red eye flights at around 2:00 a.m. and she didn't want to miss it...) Anyway, she did eventually fall asleep and slept a good 7 hours. When she woke up, we were only 5 hours away. Enter I-pad. What did people do before such technology? :)
We arrived in Seoul a bit earlier than scheduled at a few minutes before 5:00 a.m. We piled our luggage into a cab and made the 45 minute drive to our hotel, the Grand Ambassador Seoul. When we arrived, they told us our rooms would be ready at about 11:00 a.m. Enter longest freakin' day of our lives.Our crumpled and stinky selves (Ned still in her pajamas from the night before) walked down the street our hotel is on and began what seemed an endless morning of wandering in Dongdaemun Market. The markets are all organized by type of goods. One mall had nothing but hat vendors. Another had all sorts of commercial rubber mats. Another was stall after stall of bath towels. And they go on and on and on...and on. As in, towels as far as the eye can see. In a state of delirium from lacking sleep, funny is an understatement. Sadly, because of the lack of sleep, there aren't many photos from the day. We'll have to go back and capture some endless towel photos. :)
After a while of wandering, we found Lisa's version of heaven: the hanbok market. Stall after stall after stall of hanboks, the traditional formal dress of Korea. 
Josiah needed a new hanbok, so the hunt was on for just the right one. Some helpful ladies tried to get Josiah's approval of a lovely pink option. It looked great on him, but Josiah's not much into pink these days.
After the markets, we wandered back to our hotel to check in and get washed up. It is cherry blossom season here, so everywhere you look there are beautiful signs of spring. 
After an hour or so at the hotel, we caught our hotel's shuttle to Insadong, a fantastically artsy neighborhood of winding alleys lined with shops, galleries, coffee shops, street food vendors and restaurants. 
If the hanbok market was Lisa's heaven, this place is mine. We were there on a Friday at 2:00 p.m. and the place was packed. We stayed a couple hours wandering around and then returned to the hotel to crash...at 6:00 p.m. Amazingly, Nedy made it through the entire day awake and in good spirits. The kid is an amazing traveler. (Thus far. Ahem. Knock on wood.)Nedyism for the day: "It weird dat I can't undostand anysing anyone is saying. I guess dat because dey speak Kweean and I don't. Because I'm Chinese. But I yive in United States Amewica, so I speak Engish."
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