A couple of weeks ago, the entire Incheon group planned a trip to Seoul for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Apparently, this has been the coldest spring in thirty years and by the beginning of April there were still no flowers, or anything green for that matter. We wondered how they were going to have a Cherry Blossom Festival without any flowers, but went ahead with our plans. Of course the festival was cancelled but we still wanted to see this park and figured there would be some Cherry Blossoms to see.
We arrived on Yeouido Island, on a gray but actually somewhat warm (50 degrees I think) Saturday. As we predicted, there wasn’t anything blooming or green. So we decided to go look at the park on the Han River. While exploring the riverfront we could see Seoul Tower, the 63 Building (once the tallest building in Korea) and the entire skyline of Seoul. It was very pretty even with the gloomy day. We spotted a place where we could rent bikes. Having nothing else to do we paid the whopping 3 bucks for an hour long bike ride along the Han River. It was a nice bike ride, with the river on one side and the 63 building and other skyscrapers on the other. We actually spotted 15 Cherry Blossom trees too. Unfortunately, we only paid for an hour so our trip was over quicker than we wanted.
After the bike ride we were starving and hopped in a cab for the short ride across the river to the Yongsan District of Seoul. There is a huge electronics department store Derek had been dying to check out but first we had to eat. We ate in the food court and they had a variety of food from traditional Korean to burgers. I of course went straight for the pasta with all the cheese I could get!
We made our way into the electronics department store and it was like Best Buy on steroids. It was actually overwhelming. It was seven levels of electronics from DSLR Cameras, TVs, video games and cell phones to hairdryers and curling irons. I wanted a new DSLR camera, but was just too overwhelmed to make a decision. One of our friends bought a Playstation and some video games and I could see the wheels turning in Derek’s head. Instead we bought a game for our Korean Wii which ended up not even working.
We finally decided it was time to head home but on our way out I saw the most beautiful sight! At the bottom of the electronics store was a real department store and the bright lights of the Clinique counter were calling my name! I immediately went straight to the counter, picked out my makeup and checked out. The woman was very nice, and actually gave me several samples of different products. The price was about the same too. Yongsan quickly became my new favorite area of Seoul!
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