Seoul highlights

After our intense travel in Japan, we spent four days in Seoul. It was my parents' 70th birthday (they both turn 70 this year) and my siblings and I threw them a party!  I will post about this separately, but a few highlights from our days in Seoul.

Chris and I spent one day meeting friends. We went to Seocho galbi with Jany for lunch (huge galbitang!) and visited the Nike employee store courtesy of my brother. We then went over to Jihae's place to visit with her and her son, and in the evening met some high school friends for dinner.  Even though so much time has changed, at the core we are all still like high school kids! 

The other days we spent at home helping my parents wash Baekho (who has aged so much since I have last seen him) and plant lotus plants. I took a lot of pictures of us walking through the neighborhood and of my house because I can't believe how much it had changed and I was deeply sad and nostalgic for the past and held on to the images of my childhood home and neighborhood.

Do you see all those high rise buildings/apartments in the background of the top photo? Those didn't exist before. Neither did those huge homes on the left side of the photo. The neighborhood is half modern buildings and half older homes, with the newer buildings literally overshadowing older buildings. The high rise apartments took over rice fields and a beautiful view of mountains. I know people need places to live, but do we really need to make 30 floor apartment buildings?

 My neighborhood is so different now...and I hate it. Look at this apartment buildings...its so horrible.

 We went to a baseball game for the first time in Korea!!  It was very entertaining and we all had so much fun. I'm not a fan of baseball and usually find the games so boring, but Korean baseball games are nothing but constant cheering, excitement, music, and dancing. I highly recommend it! You can also eat fried chicken and pizza at the game.

 See the guy in the maroon shirt? He was up there leading the cheer team for the 4.5 hour game!

 Ah...at least this view is the same.

 Chan sung came over for breakfast and dropped us all off at my parent's birthday party. I haven't seen him in years and was really grateful he made time for us in the wee morning.

I miss my mom's cooking! We went home every morning for an elaborate breakfast.