andyhwaiting

As I had spent the first 2 weeks travelling on my own seeing what I wanted to see, today was more about going somewhere my mom wanted to visit and spending time with her and my aunts. My mom’s knee was a much better now so she wanted to see some of Seoul and because she’s really into nature and serene and quiet environments, we did some brainstorming about where to go. My aunt had gone to World Cup Park and atop Haneul Park before so she suggested we go there. That was fine with me because it was somewhere I wanted to check out also and the weather was perfect today. Due to my cousin and niece’s visit , my visit to the World Cup Stadium earlier in my trip ended short and without seeing the surrounding parks. At the time, the weather was extremely hot so it was doubtful whether I really would have seen much of the parks anyways. We headed out to the park via cab after eating lunch at home as it was our intention to get there after the peak sun time. The walk to the main street where we...

Sorry bloggy, I feel like I haven’t been spending enough time with you lately. I will try and make it up to you today with a post. I feel like my inspiration to blog comes and goes in waves depending on what other things are happening around me and today feels like a blog post day! I’m optimistic… In the meantime, check out this video from 2 of my favourite Kpop groups, Super Junior and Girls’ Generation. It was a video they shot promoting the city of Seoul. Before this song, any musical associations with the city of Seoul I had in my head were still of those songs from the 1988 Seoul Olympics or that era (you know which ones I am talking about ). Not that there is anything wrong with those songs. I’m just glad this new Seoul song came out as those ‘80’s style songs needed to be purged and replaced in my head with something a bit more modern.^^ I favourited this video and watched it many times before my trip but just yesterday, I watched it again for the first time since coming...

After finishing with Lotte World, I headed for my next destination which was Olympic Park . My visit to Olympic Park was inspired entirely from the recommendation by my Lonely Planet book. The book designated it as one of the top picks for the Gangnam and Jamsil area. I was still at Jamsil Station which has 2 subway lines (Green Line 2 and Pink Line 8) running through it and needed to get from Line 2 to Line 8 so that I could take the Line 8 train one stop over to Mongchontoseong. Even though Jamsil Station is listed as a transfer point for the two lines on the map, if my memory serves me correctly, I discovered they were actually a looooooong walk apart. Sometimes the lines that converged at some subway stations like at Jongno 3-ga were relative close to each other so you didn’t have to walk very far to transfer between the lines. Other times, it was almost deceiving how they were located on the same spot on the subway map because of how far apart they actually were in real life. The ...

Through watching various Korean dramas and variety shows, I came to know a little about Lotte World before my visit today, mainly that it was part amusement park and also part indoor skating rink. On several occasions, I've seen the amusement park and rink used as the backdrop for romantic scenes or family outings. As I was heading there alone, I made up my mind prior that I wasn't going to check out the amusement park part of it. I was going more to check out the ice rink instead. I knew there was also a mall component so I planned to do some window shopping as well. I was familiar with the route to Lotte World as I had gone to the Jamsil area once earlier in my trip to visit the COEX Mall. Lotte World was located just a few stops East of that along the same line. When I got to Lotte World, I found it to be a giant complex of shops, restaurants and indoor and outdoor entertainment. There seemed to be 2 distinct sections to Lotte World; the shopping mall section and the amusem...

One of my older aunt’s who resides in a city south of Seoul had been staying with us for the last several days and today her daughter and granddaughter (so my cousin and niece) came to visit us and to take my aunt back home. When I came back to my aunt’s place from World Cup Stadium, they had already arrived and were waiting for my return. It was nice to meet my cousin and to find out that I actually have a niece. Aside from immediate family, I have no relatives at all in Toronto or Canada so the idea that I have relatives let alone a cousin or niece was a little surreal. You would think that I would connect more with my cousin but since there was an age gap (she was older than I was), I actually spent all the time talking with my niece as she seemed closer to my age than my cousin. My niece was very cute and while she could probably speak a little English, she seemed shy to do so so we conversed in Korean. She was studying horticulture at University and had tests coming up in the near...

I decided the night before to go and visit the 2002 Seoul World Cup Stadium and Museum .  The stadium wasn’t a place I initially planned for and thus did not have it on my itinerary thinking there probably wasn’t much to see other than an empty stadium.  The more I thought about it however, the more I wanted to check it out because the World Cup represented such a fond recent memory among Koreans, including myself.  During the 2002 World Cup, I remember feeling the enthusiasm and support the people of Korea gave to the National team all the way in Toronto.  At that time, my non-Korean friends always made comments about how crazy and passionate the Korean fans were as they saw them on TV.  I can’t imagine what it was like to actually be in Korea and Seoul during that time.  I work in an area with a Korean population so I could also see and hear the local support pouring on to the streets of Toronto after each gut wrenching win on their way to the quarter fin...

One of the reasons why I chose to visit the Namsan area today was because my aunt while looking through the papers discovered that there was going to be some kind of festival going on at the Namsangol Hanok Village on this day. She had this local paper that listed all events that were happening in Seoul for the month of October. I hoped on the #2 bus near the Namsan Stairs and headed for Namsangol Hanok Village. The Namsangol Hanok Village is an area where they have preserved much of what it was like to live in Korea many years ago. Hanok is the term used to describe a traditional Korean style house. You probably won’t find too many hanoks in Seoul except for some pockets throughout the city like at Namsan or Bukchon. There are actually some places that have revitalized the hanok either through restoration or through new construction but with the purposes of acting like a resort and as a weekend getaway for city people. On the way to Namsangol, I passed by the Seoul Animation Center a...

I headed off to my next destinations which were the Namsan Stairs and Park. My wanting to visit these 2 places was totally inspired by Korean TV. To someone not in the know, the Namsan Stairs looks like any other set of concrete stairs. To many Korean Drama lovers though, these stairs are most famous for being featured in the drama “My Lovely Sam-soon”. To me however, these stairs will always be defined as place were Alex (of Clazziquai ) and Shin Ae reunited for their second run on MBC’s We Got Married. As you can probably tell from my blog posts, I’ve been a fan of the show since the beginning and though many couples have come and gone, the AlShin Couple is still my favourite couple of all time.^^ If you want to see the segment featuring the AlShin Couple at the Namsan Stairs that inspired me to go, you can watch it right here ! It’s cute.^^ It's too bad they didn't turn out to be a real couple. In planning for my trip, it was one of those “wouldn’t it be nice to check it o...