Babs Blabs: Soul to Seoul - Korea Last Day in Asia. FIN!

Saturday morning we get up and go sight seeing.

I love a man in uniform

First stop --the palace complete with the Royal Guards. It’s fun, especially since people (mostly Chinese tourist) keep asking us, the 3 Americans, to take pictures with them. They think we are famous, so we let them. These tourist are so lucky to have their picture taken with Brad Pitt, Michelle Obama and George Clooney! Smile. Click!

The bootleg:
Michelle Obama, Brad Pitt and George Clooney

They won't believe this in China

Their homework was to speak English
We are the proof they did it.

Cassius Clay?
I thought you were Brad Pitt.

There is something here known as ‘medical tourism’ where people come her for plastic surgery and sightseeing. Notice these two women in front of the palace posing for glamour shots in their bandages. So if you need a little work done and want to throw in some cultural attractions, then medical tourism is for you.

Medical Tourism

Namdaemun area

Next we go to the Namdaemun area, a cute touristy area. I have fun dancing with a street dancer. We shop, check out protesters and have a wonderful lunch.

We stop at another street market and it feels like being a kid on Saturday morning, when you’re shopping with your mother. The wonder of it all, as the adults maneuver their way around and you just follow—looking and smelling and touching. It’s so amazing to you that there is an order to it that everyone, but you, understands. It’s a magnificent puzzle.

Getting my dance on!

She's a dancing machine.

We wear the mask.

Greg ( I mean George Clooney)
finally gets his Geisha girls.

Korean BBQ

We rush home to change for a night out. One of Yung Mi’s classmates and her 17 year old son are meeting us for a big Korean BBQ dinner. What a meal! We cook our own meat, which smells so good, I almost gave up ‘not eating meat.’ Lucky for me, two giant delicious mackerels came out just in time to save me. We made a dent in the huge meal, but alas we also left quite a mess.

We left a mess

Playing Sly and the Family Stone on vinyl

Off we go for drinks at “Back to Vinyl” a very cool hipster record bar. Yes, records as in vinyl as in LP’s. This place has thousands of records and all you have to do is make a request. Spencer had us rocking to Sly and the Family Stone! They also had Watermelon Mint Martinis. Yummy. Even more yummy was the pristine projection of the 1943 B&W classic French film, ‘Le Corbeau.’ This place is EPIC.

We hit a few more bars on the strip and then decided to call it a night since we have an early flight back to the states.

Seoul is a great city. The perfect last stop before coming back to the US. It was fast “balee balee,” and bustling but also safe, friendly and dignified.

Going to the airport was no problem as we could check our luggage and go thru immigrations at the train station and have three hours to get to the airport. Enough time to do more shopping.

Southeast Asia was great.

Our bags went straight thru to Chicago with no problem. It felt strange being back around all the Americans. Everyone seemed so unhappy and generally pissed off.