South Korea Vacation 2015 - Part 1

This year we decided to visit Korea in the Fall. It's one of my favorite seasons in Korea. The weather cools, the trees change their leaves and the rainy season is over. We usually stay in a hotel, which in Seoul is pretty expensive, but opted this year to try AirBnB. There are a lot of places in Seoul available and we chose one very near to Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was studio apartment with a small kitchen. Most importantly to us, it had a washer so we could wash and hang dry our clothes. This was the view out our window.

We woke up to this view every morning. We also found out that our street was where all the Chinese tour buses parked and there were tons of them.

 

 This is Gyeongbokgung Palace. We had visited this palace a lot so we passed this time.

See the cement protruding from the subway exit? The exit close to our apartment was also a wheelchair access exit. While waiting to meet up with Hannah, Rocketman tripped over this while looking at his phone. At the time, I was sitting on the other side of the exit. To my horror, I witnessed the entire fall. He landed on his bad knee and his wrist, saving his IPhone from harm. Exiting Koreans saw it also and were quite concerned.

 

He got up and we went to sit down. Clearly he was in a lot of pain but was putting up a good front for me. It wasn't until later that evening when we returned to the apartment I saw his bloody, torn up knee which was also swollen badly. This turned out to not be his first fall.

 

Later that night we met up with Hannah and we were looking for particular restaurant. All of a sudden Hannah and I heard a noise. We were at the bottom of some cement steps and we looked up to find Rocketman had fallen on the steps. Luckily he fell on his behind or he would have been seriously injured. Again, he was looking at his phone at the time. He hurt his hip and sported a huge purple bruise for the duration of our vacation. This all happened the first 24 hours in Korea.

 

This trip was also the first time in a long time where I suffered from jetlag. It lasted a couple of days where my digestive tract was off and I didn't feel well. We took it easy because of it and didn't venture too far from the apartment. It was annoying to me because we had so much to do but you do what you have to, especially when you don't feel up to much. It got better and so did the trip.

 

Maedeup Monday!

We decided to visit South Korea during the fall this year and we left October 1st and returned October 17th. I always try to bring lots to do on the flight because it's a long one, around 30 hours in the air (round trip). I have a special purse for this occasion where I fill it with maedeup projects, a book to read, a journal and all sorts of things to keep my mind busy. These were the bracelets I worked on and completed during our trip. I'd love to say I can sleep on a plane but alas I'm not one of those who can.

 I'm a weird girl with lots of phobias, especially where planes are involved. One of my biggest fears is that the bathrooms are occupied and I have to go really, really bad. Guess what? The flight to Korea was pretty good with little to no turbulence and the bathrooms available when I needed them. But the flight back was a total nightmare. This light was on almost the entire flight with people lined up waiting at most times. Wouldn't you know that when this situation happens, my body overreacts and I feel like I have to go all the time. The sign alone freaked me out most of the trip. I have never seen the bathrooms so occupied so constantly, and I've flown quite a bit.

I also have this weird thing that after 10 or 12 hours in the air, the last two hours are the hardest and seem to take the longest. I get really anxious and restless. I don't know what it is but it happens to me every time. I try not to look at the flight data information but I just can't help myself.

And since I'm sharing my weirdness, another thing I freak out about is getting our carry-on luggage into the overheads. We usually get seats in the exit row that also has the flight attendants jump seats. These seats have huge leg room but nowhere to place anything under the seats in front of you, and there are no overheads nearby because the galley and bulkhead are there. So I'm always anxious to preboard so that my luggage gets into an overhead bin. It is only an issue when we go to Korea because I have presents in my carry-on with breakable items. The return flight, my carry-on contains hanji which I don't want to check. Ya, it's fun to fly with me.

Rocketman had some fun during preboarding on our flight from Detroit to Incheon. The Korean flight attendant wasn't very tall and was having a hard time closing the bins, so Rocketman helped her out. She loved it and he helped out quite a bit. Being tall can come in handy.

Upon our return I last week I was spent. I think we did so much walking and stairclimbing and traveling around Korea that when we returned I just crashed. I was exhausted the entire week. I'm finally feeling back to my old self but it was brutal there for awhile.

I will be sharing our trip and all the good, bad and amazing things that happened.