Selfie at the Lapidary
Tolar & Clint trying on some jackets
Adam with his new face
I found an Artomat outside of the fantastic restaurant Compère Lapin. Artomat turns old cigarette vending machines into art vending machines. For $5, you get a small piece of art. Super cool. Plus, it’s from Winston-Salem, North Carolina!
From the Artomat, I bought a painting created by Carolina Corona
Bunnymen statues on top of a building
Bike “statue”: still unsure how this man was balanced on this bike…
Suffering Bastard tiki mug
I’m back! Spent some time with my family in Atlanta, hung out with JP in Columbia & saw Jump, Little Children, and met some friends’ babies!
Autumn leaves
H roasting marshmallows by the fire
J reading
Me & M
H & M posing
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Me & M
Jump, Little Children: White Mule, Columbia, South Carolina
JP, J, & me
Chris
The South Korean leg of my ‘grand tour’ has come to an end. I’m currently sitting in the Korean Airlines lounge in Seoul’s Incheon airport, a little exhausted, yet so grateful & happy that I’ve been able to spend the past 6 weeks in California, Australia, & South Korea.
This morning, I was in Jeju, and, in a couple of hours, I will board a flight to Atlanta, where I’ll get to spend the next 10 days or so celebrating Thanksgiving and spending time with my family.
Jeju Air: new standard (ahem)
Incheon airport
It’s been an incredible trip, but I’m excited to relax in a more familiar territory & hang out with the family!
I put together this 1 Second Everyday video mashup that takes photos & 1 second video clips from the past couple of months and mashes them together in a single video. Check it out!
1 second everyday mashup video
Thanks for joining me through my posts on this blog! I will probably post a bit less regularly moving forward.
Here are a few posts from the past few days in Jeju I’ve just gotten around to posting:
It was a rainy day, so we went and picked up some pizzas and chicken for lunch from Magpie, then we went out for a drive.
We had a delicious dinner in the city of chicken & mushroom dumplings, chicken meatballs, pork charsiu, and noodle soup with fish cake.
Oranges!
Me & Ellie
Magpie posters
Dinner
We started the day in Jeju picking some oranges from their back yard. We went out for an amazing lunch, then stopped by the beach for a bit, followed by a visit to Tiffany & Erik’s brewery: Magpie. Tiffany & I ducked out for a bbq dinner.
Orange picking
Traditional Korean lunch: beef, fish, pancakes, soup, spicy salad with homemade tofu, plenty of yummy sides.
Beach
Beach selfie
Magpie brewery: Brewed on Jeju, Born in Seoul
Magpie brewery
Tiffany
BBQ dinner
I met up with Tiffany’s family and flew from Seoul’s Gimpo airport down to Jeju, an island off the southern coast of South Korea.
Before doing that, I walked a bit around Namsan park near my hotel.
Views of Seoul from Namsan park
Cab to Gimpo airport
Asiana flight from Seoul Gimpo to Jeju
I returned to Bimbam Cafe this morning, but this time got the quiche lorraine, which was even better than yesterday’s breakfast. I met up with Tiffany & fam to go down to the park near the Han river.
This afternoon, I took the bus up to the Jongmyo shrine, which I learned I could not enter without a tour. Unfortunately, the next one was 1½ hours away. So I walked up to the Bukchon Hanok village: a neighborhood of old style residential homes that are still in use. One interesting tidbit is that young adults will rent period-piece costumes and walk around to places like palaces or old villages to take photos of themselves. It’s only a few bucks to rent one of these costumes for a few hours, and they seem to love it.
I returned to the Jongmyo shrine for the 4pm tour. The shrine is the spirit home for the kings of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled for 500 years up til the end of the 19th century.
For dinner, I got to go to Tiffany & Eric’s brewery bar: Magpie, where we had delicious beers & pizzas!
Sunrise, viewed from my hotel room. Not bad, eh?
Quiche lorraine & broiled grapefruit, from Bimbam Cafe
Han river park
M taking a picture of me
Bukchon Hanok Village
Bukchon Hanok Village: costumes!
Jongmyo shrine: a dope tree
Jongmyo shrine: where the kings’ spirits “live on”
Magpie pizzas: hawaiian & lamb
Londoner beer from Magpie + Charles H: the beer version of a Pimm’s cup!
View from my hotel at night
My first full day in Seoul! I had a good breakfast at Bimbam Cafe near the hotel, then walked down to the War Memorial of Korea, which encompassed lots of history of Korea, with an emphasis on the Korean War.
I had a yummy sandwich at Casablanca in Itaewon, then met up with Tiffany & fam to see the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Arario museum.
We had a dope Korean dinner of seafood & veggie pancake, a spicy salad with chestnut jelly, and a creamy noodle soup, along with makgeolli, a Korean rice wine that was yum.
Breakfast at Bimbam Cafe
Korean War monument
Statue of Brothers
War Memorial of Korea
United Nations Memorial Cemetery: pretty interesting ‘infinity’ cemetery in a small room with mirrors on both sides
My holiday party outfit
Flowers at the War Memorial
Chicken sandwich at Casablanca Sandwicherie
Gwanghwamun Square
Gyeongbokgung Palace
Deer at Arario museum: these are taxidermied deer covered in crystals.
Street
Dinner: spicy salad with chestnut jelly, seafood & veggie pancake, creamy noodle soup.
Tiffany’s daughter!
After a long flight from Melbourne with a middle-of-the-night layover in Singapore, I made it to Seoul! I took the KAL (Korean Airlines) Limousine Bus from Seoul’s Incheon airport to the Grand Hyatt hotel. The bus was pretty nice, as it does a loop from the airport to major hotels in Seoul, so it’s a easy, inexpensive way to efficiently get to the destination.
I was pretty wiped out when I checked in, but I managed to walk down to Full Moon where I had a beef bulgogi meal, complete with various Korean style sides.
Later, I met up with Tiffany & her family to explore Seoul a bit before having dinner at Myeongdong Kyoja, where we had amazing chicken & dumpling noodle soup along with chicken dumplings.
At first, I had the limo bus to myself, but a few others joined me at the other terminal.
Three dudes marching outside in fun clothes
Views from my hotel room
Full Moon: Beef bulgogi & sides
Me and Tiffany
These Pringles actually tasted like bolognese.