Wandering around Seoul

We didn't have a plan today, so we just made things up as we went along.

Besides, part of traveling like we do means that we have to spend a certain amount of time on the internet researching our onward travel, so we did take some time this morning looking up some things regarding our upcoming travel day on Thursday when we fly back across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle, Washington.

So it wasn't until noon when we decided that we would simply go for a walk in the neighborhood without any idea really of where we're going.

This is a sculpture!

Now, does that sculpture not look like a UFO that crash landed? I don't know if that was what the artist intended, but that's certainly what it looks like to us! Strange stuff.

We were wandering around and we came across a Vietnamese restaurant. Decided to have lunch there because it's easy to find rice noodles in that style of restaurant. Korean noodles are almost always wheat noodles, so we haven't been eating any of them. Had a decent lunch, and we were happy we stopped in.

Man, there are a lot of coffee shops in Seoul. It's almost as if every second business is selling coffee and/or tea. And they try to outdo each other with advertising too. "Best coffee in the World" and "Freshest coffee in town"...that sort of thing. 

Oh, and chicken and beer places too. We think it's funny, but for some reason the Koreans love the combination of chicken and beer and it's very common to see a restaurant advertising that they do "chicken and beer"!

The Imperial Palace Hotel.  

Sorry, but in all our wandering this afternoon, I hardly took any pictures!

June sent an email asking if there was anything we wanted to do that evening, and we suggested the free fountain show put on at one of the bridges here in Seoul. It was a 15 minute show, starting at 8:00pm. So they came over and picked us up, and we made it in time for the show.

But it wasn't really anything special, so I'm glad there was no charge.

Banbo Bridge fountain show.

It was okay, but we thought it would have been more colorful.

The lights at the nearby "floating islands" were quite nice though.

There was an Italian restaurant at one of the three floating islands, and we went for dinner. Eating gluten free at an Italian restaurant can be an issue, but they had some risotto that looked really nice and we learned that risotto is almost always gluten free. Nice choice, and we enjoyed our meal! Once again, thank you June and Park!!!

Kevin, Ruth, Park, and June.

Far in the distance, this is Seoul Tower. 

Not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow. Thinking about doing a hike though. The weather has become quite a bit cooler, with a low down to 3C (37F) and a high tomorrow calling for 16C (62F). With some sunshine, that would be a perfect hiking temperature!