Friday, August 2, 2013

Where to play on a rainy day?

We awoke this morning to some rain and decided that the weather dictated a day spent largely indoors.  Jonathan suggested 'Building 63', a sixty three story building that was built about 30 years ago during an economic boom in Seoul.  According to Jonathan, we could expect to find a number of attractions including an aquarium, wax museum and terrific views of the city.  What Jonathan didn't know was that we could also find most of the families in Seoul there today as well!


We used this trip in to Seoul to learn how the subway system works.  Overall, it's actually quite simple and clean given the millions of people who rely on the subway for their daily commute each day.  I puzzled over the route map for a bit before setting out but several transfers later (all necessary, by the way), we reached our destination!

While the name 'Building 63' sounds kinda lame, the building itself is quite spectacular.  We had a quick bite to eat at a little French cafe in the lobby then settled into the attractions.




After lunch, we headed up to the observation area on the 60th floor of the building.  With windows on all sides, there are vast panoramas of Seoul to take in.  Even though it was a dreary day, we still had a spectacular view of Seoul and some of the surrounding area.  The many bridges that we could see over the Han River were gorgeous...








From the sixtieth floor, we headed down to the wax museum in the basement.  There were many lifelike wax figures, some of whom looked more realistic than others.  We took many photos within the wax museum - in fact, so many photos that Rachel drained her camera batteries while there so she had to use my phone to take pictures in the aquarium!



From the wax museum, we joined the hour+ line-up for Sea World.  There were SOO many people crammed into the aquarium that it was not a very pleasurable experience for any of us.  Nonetheless, we still took many photos as we passed by the tanks of creatures comprised of all shapes and sizes.





Many hours after we had arrived at Building 63, the skies lifted a little and the rain stopped.  We decided to head back to Gangnam to meet HJ for a quick dinner before the evening classes that she teaches.  We went to a wonderful restaurant that serves many takes of the classic Korean dish 'bibimbap'.  We had another fantastic Korean meal in Korea :-)



Well, it's getting late and we have to be up at 4:00am tomorrow to begin our journey to Kyung Ju, the former capital city in South Korea.  We're taking the high speed train for a couple hours to get there and staying in a traditional Korean home for the one night that we're there.  We'll have a couple days to explore this city that, apparently, is like one huge museum.  Can't guarantee that we'll have access to wifi so it might be a couple days before you hear from us again.  Having said that, if we can get online we'll compose another post for you tomorrow evening!

Thanks for reading,
Andy

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