Today I left for Seoul with Sarah and Lyndsay. Lyndsay’s birthday is Monday, so her one birthday wish was for a girl’s weekend in Seoul…without babies. I must confess, I’ve been dreading this weekend ever since I agreed to it. I know that Michael is perfectly capable of taking very good care of our children for the weekend, but I’ve NEVER left them over night! The very idea of not being the last face they see at night and the first face they see in the morning has not sat very well with me. Of course, this is also the first time Sarah has left little Eve, or Lyndsay her little baby Mason, so I knew they were a little nervous too. So, this morning I gave Ella and Sterling a pep talk before getting them out of their cribs. I explained that Mommy loved them very much and would miss them every minute I was away, but they needed to promise to be good for Daddy for the weekend. No shenanigans at naptime, and straight to bed at night. No choking on cookies, or anything else that could give Mommy a heart attack. Then at 7:30am after lots of hugs and kisses, Sarah and I caught a taxi to the bus where we met Lyndsay. I didn’t think things were looking too promising when we had each called home to check on the kids before the 8 o’clock bus had even turned it’s engine on! But alas, we stayed on the bus, with each of our husbands assuring us that everything would be fine and to have a good time. So, it was off to Seoul for a girl’s weekend….
Getting pedicures; because a girls’ weekend wouldn’t be a girl’s weekend without pretty pink toenails! It was soooo nice and relaxing to get our toes done. With Starbucks in hand we had a fun time chatting it up!
Shop, shop, shop. We started our shopping by hitting up the PX on Yongsan Army Base in Seoul. It’s the largest base on the peninsula, with the best PX and commissary. Needless to say, we left with lots of surprises for good little babies. This was the damage we did within the first hour…before we even made it out into the city!
A short taxi ride later we arrived at our hotel. We stayed at the Hyatt Grand Hotel, and I have to highly recommend it if you’re ever in need of accommodations in Seoul. It’s a beautiful hotel, and very conveniently located in the Itaewon neighborhood.
Time to explore Seoul! Of course, you could spend your life in Seoul and never have an opportunity to see all of its streets and little alleyways.
Did I mention how packed these subway cars can get? We squeezed onto several cars that were barely even standing room only. Then we twisted and turned and made our way under the streets of Seoul, only getting lost once!
Shinsegae. Would anyone like to take a guess how long 3 women can ride up and down the escalator in a department store without purchasing ANYTHING? I’m sure there are a few wise cracking men out there who are replying “seconds”, “minutes” or even “impossible”. Clearly these men have never seen a woman on a mission. We searched out the Shinsegae department store for a very specific reason. Truly, it was way out of our budget to actually do any shopping there. It was another one of these super, incredibly nice shopping malls that you find in Korea. Complete with a Banana Republic and GAP. Of course, I would never in a million years pay $90 for a child’s dress at GAP, or $60 for a pair of baby Crocs shoes, but I guess if you’re that desperate for American mainstream labels, you’ll fork over those big bucks. Let me insert here a “thank God” for APO shipping and Internet shopping! Anyhow, back to my story. So we searched out Shinsegae for a reason…because they had a Lush body store. I was not privy to Lush before our trip, but I must say, it was in fact worth riding up and down the escalators for an hour! Yes, an hour. Up and down we went, sure that eventually we would find Lush. Body products…surely it would be on the floor with the bath and beauty aides, right? Wrong. We tried every logical place before finally finding it…amongst the linens and dishes on the Living floor. But as I said, it was all worth it to pick up a few wonderful smelling bath bombs. They even have bath bombs for babies! I can think of a few babies who will be smelling very yummy this week.
Okay, so we had to get some American food at some point this weekend. I don’t even like T.G.I Fridays in the states, but it sure was yummy today! We all agreed that while it’s great fun to eat American food while in Korea, we might be in search of Korean food when we return to the states!
One area of the city we had to check out was Namdaemun. It’s a market that runs through numerous streets. It’s huge! You can find anything in the market from octopus legs to black market goods. Actually, there are a lot of black market items as well as knock off items available. So, we wove our way through the streets of the market, stopping to haggle prices and picking up lots of souvenirs to take home.
I think it’s safe to say that this market is not for the faint of heart or the claustrophobic. People, people everywhere!
After a long day of shopping, we made it back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, but before heading out we had to call home and check on everyone. Sarah’s husband Kevin, and their daughter Eve were at our house where he joined Michael in grilling out for dinner. I think between 2 Daddies and 3 toddlers they managed to pull off something like dinner at the zoo.
I wore my new dress I picked up in Itaewon to dinner, isn’t it cute? We went to a Swiss fondue restaurant for a delicious dinner, uninterrupted by children throwing their food on the floor, or refusing to eat their green beans. Have I mentioned how much fun we’ve had today yet?
Heaven! Or at the very least the perfect ending to an exciting day…a soak in the bathtub. None of our homes here in Korea have bath tubs in them, so we were all very excited to soak for a long time in the hotel bathtub, enjoying our Lush bath bombs (hence, that’s why the water is green).
And at the end of a very long day (it was 2am!) it felt great to hit the bed…a very large king sized bed, perfect for 3 friends!
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