Seoul Part 1

I wanted to go on a grad trip with Sam last year but it was difficult for him to take leave so we had our holiday this year instead. We booked our tickets many months in advance so the built up excitement for our trip was huge - even though we had no clue what activities we were going to do until we reached Korea. I guess we were still excited because it was winter in Korea and after Iceland in 2013, we fell in love with the cold (and snow).

I took Baby Eeyore with me on this trip. Most of the time he lived in my pocket and only appeared when I remembered to take him out for pictures.

We boarded Scoot to Korea and transited at Taipei. It was a little tiring but since we were used to flying budget, it wasn't too bad. It also helped that our transit in Taipei was only about an hour long. 

We arrived in Seoul late at night so the first thing we did when we woke up the next morning was to head to a hair salon to get our hair fixed. Sam desperately needed a cut. He let his hair grow long for 2-3 months before our trip just for this haircut. I previously told him that Korean hair salons were awesome and we just had to try. I dyed my hair my natural hair colour because I just didn't want to maintain dyed (half brown, half dark brown) hair anymore. 

After the cut, Sam's hair looked like this and I found it so amusing because I couldn't get used to it. The hairstylist cut his hair very systematically and it looked super neat. For the next few days, he styled his hair just to maintain this look, until we came back to Singapore and it was back to square 1. He needs another cut.

After our little salon adventure, we met our Korean friend, Kyung Eun and she brought us to eat chicken stew. The warm soup was refreshingly awesome! The last time we saw her was almost 3 years ago in Iceland when we lived together for about 4 months or so.

After a short visit to Gyeongbokgung palace, she brought us to Samcheongdong. 

Found this stylish little shop selling men's accessories.

We walked to the top of some hill which overlooked Samcheongdong and Kyung Eun told us that the president stayed in that dark blue-roofed house in the distance, right at the end, before the mountains.

It was our first time coming here and the atmosphere was breathtaking!

Sam desperately wanted to eat authentic Korean BBQ so Kyung Eun brought us to this place in Insadong (or somewhere nearby). It was a little pricey but probably the best Korean BBQ we've ever tried. Yum!

The next day, we woke up at 4am and left Seoul for Alpensia to ski. It was such a tiring but fun day. It was also Sam's first time skiing and he picked up the sport just after 2-3 tries and 2 YouTube videos. I made the mistake of bringing him to the primary slope for his very first try instead of the bunny slope and he sped out of control all the way down. Oops!

After eventually finding and then practicing on the bunny slope, we headed to the primary slope and then moved up to the middle slope. This was all done in a day - that was how fast Sam picked up the sport! Just before leaving the resort, we decided to do one last hoorah by trying the high slope. Sam lost control almost immediately and while laughing at his hilarious fall, I fell too. This happened all the way down and because of that one try on the high slope, we ended up returning our ski clothes and gear entirely covered in snow.

Our crazy guts led us here...

The slopes look so shallow here but it's a huge contrast to what we experienced.

Can't wait to ski again!!!