Christmas in Seoul and Busan

For Christmas, we decided to use our three day weekend to travel to Seoul and Busan.
Early on Christmas morning we woke up to get on a bus to Seoul. I love the buses here in Korea, there are so convenient, cheap and clean. After just over an hour we arrived in Seoul and made our way to our hotel. We were staying in Meyong-dong. Which is a very busy part of Seoul. As you can see from our hotel room view, it was a sea of lights, snow, and cars. After checking into the hotel we spent the day walking around checking out the architecture and shopping. My favorite building that we saw was the Korean Times building. We also made our way through the open markets that are quite a site to see. It's hard to describe. More copy knock-off's than the eye can behold. Quality ranged from bad to ok. They also, had lots of American personal care items like toothpaste that we could stock up on.
In Korea, Christmas is not nearly the big deal it is back in the States. Everything was open and people were just out milling around like a typical day. For Christmas dinner, we stopped at a little restaurant that we had discovered last time we were in Seoul. I had one of my favorite Korean dishes. Tuna gim-bop. Dried seaweed, rice, vegetables, tuna, egg, carrot. Rolled into a little cylinder cut into round bit sized circles. Delicious.
The day after Christmas we took the super train to Busan. At Busan we had one main goal in mind, to see the ocean. Dwight has never seen the ocean or been on a beach. Yeah, I know, kinda crazy. We made it to the beach and after we took a few pictures we had a drunk Korean come try to practice his English on us and sing us a song. This is more common than one might think. Being drunk and out in public is quite the norm here is Korea. After we escaped we went to the Aquarium and largest shopping mall in Korea. The aquarium was great, I've never been that close to a shark and hope that it will only be when there is a large pane of glass between us. The shopping mall had what they call Spaland. A huge Spa, with different sauna's and hot baths. We spent a few hours relaxing between the different hot rooms and outside foot bath. It was so nice! It was the perfect end to a great Christmas weekend.



Korean Times
















View from our hotel room. Lotte Department is one of the luxury stores.

Christmas dinner

Train to Busan

63rd Building

Busan

Diamond Bridge at night

Guns N' Roses in Seoul

Dwight's Christmas gift to me this year was a great surprise. Tickets to the Guns N' Roses concert in Seoul on 12/12. For those who do not know, I am a HUGE GNR fan.

The concert was on a Sunday so we took Monday off from work (just in case we were too tired). Concerts in Korea are handled quite differently than in the States. We had general admission so that we could try and get as close to the stage as possible. When we arrived at the Olympic Park Stadium we found huge lines outside the venue. We found out that we had to line up in the order we had bought our tickets. We found our number grouping and began to wait. The concert was suppose to start at 7 and we had arrived 20 minutes early. We thought 20 minutes of waiting outside wouldn't be bad. Wrong. Axl being Axl, the show was delayed so we were stuck waiting outside in the cold for an hour. Unfortunately, even when we finally got inside we still had to wait another hour and a half before Axl would take the stage.

But of course as luck would have it we had plenty to keep us occupied while we waited. Mainly the common drunk-jerk-concert-goer looking for trouble, and who does he find to pick a fight? Dwight and I. After trying to get between me and the stage (big mistake - I may be short, but nothing comes between Axl and me) he decided to set up camp right behind us to plan how he would make it to the front of the crowd when the lights went out. Cultural note, in Seoul, most Koreans can understand English and even speak a little if not fluently, so anyone planning to bulldoze people ought to be careful what they say and who they are around. Fast forward to 20 minutes of listening to this obnoxious ranting our friend decides he needs a smoke break and lits up right behind us. Then we hear the Korean to the right of this guy tell him that he can't smoke in the stadium, which he boldly challenges back that if they want him to quit smoking security can "come and make him." I know you can picture how this is about to play out. At that point I had had enough, I turned around and said that I was allergic to smoke and would appreciate it if he put out his cigarette. His response, a big drag off his cig and blown right into my face. Well, then Dwight had enough and pushed the guy back. He staggers backwards and falls. Takes a minute to figure out what happened and then comes up swinging at Dwight. I was very proud of Dwight for not throwing a punch back and instead played defense until security arrives and trows the arse out much to the relief and enjoyment of everyone within earshot.

After an eventful pre-show drama, Axl finally took the stage 2 and 1/2 hours late. The concert was great, he sounded amazing and I finally really took a liking to his new material off the new CD, Chinese Democracy. However, as you can see from the pictures below, Axl has aged quite a bit, even in the 4 years since I have seen him last. The Korean Times reviewed the concert and noted that even though Axl changed his outfit 4 + times, none where able to hide his paunch from the adoring crowd. Oh well, overall the best of the three times I have seen him in concert. :)

November Rain

We were so close!
















He smiles, but I can still see his paunch!






















DJ Ashba(interesting little top hat....he was very good, but no Slash)

So close!