Korea Trip Report Part Four

Monday morning we woke up and were out of the hotel by ten for our next adventure: Lotte World.

When we first started looking into things to do on this trip, I was amazed by the number of theme parks I found.  This particular park was close to where we were staying and looked to be pretty large so this was the one we planned on.  I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The first part of the park is all indoors.  Since it was a weekday and we got there fairly early, there were no lines for any of the rides when we showed up.  We looked around for a few minutes.  Rob convinced me to get on the Sinbad ride which was very much like Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney.  I wasn’t fond of the drops, but it didn’t kill me.

We spent the rest of the morning wandering around looking at things, with Rob going on some of the scarier rides by himself.  I did go on both the Air Balloon ride and the Monorail, which is pretty good for a gal that is afraid of heights as I am.

We shopped, we ate, we walked close to five miles according to our Iphone pedometer thingy.  It was a lot of fun.  We didn’t cover the entire park but by late afternoon our feet were just done.  We had done more walking in the last week than we had in the last couple of months, so our feet were telling us to give it a rest.  We did as much as we wanted to do though before calling it a day.  We did stop and go through the Folk History Museum and a little bit of the Lotte shopping area before heading back to the hotel.

I soaked my feet in the tub while Rob went out and got us food for dinner.  Sandwiches, both with a Korean twist as most “American” food has here.  We ate, watched wacky Korean TV and went to bed.

Tuesday morning we woke up and got packed up.  I checked out the breakfast in the lobby and got a bagel and a coffee to bring back to the room.  We were fully packed and checked out right at ten when hotel check out was.

Over the course of our “weekend” away I had two things that I wanted to acquire.  One was a smaller wallet for my traveling purse with a way to attach it to the keyring inside my purse.  This is so I could easily access my military ID and my subway pass since those were the two things I used multiple times daily.  The other was a backpack.  I had failed to bring one with me on the trip, opting for a very large purse instead and I regretted the decision almost as soon as we started traveling.

On the way back to the hotel on Monday, at the subway station, we found both.  We had seen variations on both of them at different shops throughout the trip, but I was never sold on them and they were pricey.  I’m so glad I waited, because I found exactly what I was looking for and they were only ten bucks each!  Score!  The backpack made my traveling home so much easier that that big purse.  I was never really sold on the purse in the first place so I left it in the hotel room with a note that said: “Free Purse!”.  If housekeeping could read English, they lucked into a pretty cool present.

Once we got home and unpacked, Rob was off to have a dinner with his work contacts, so I hung around the house for a bit.  Liz and I eventually got out to Itaewon  for a coffee, then we went to a pottery shop Liz had recommended to look for souvenirs and found a few cute things before heading home.

We had dinner delivered that evening from a sandwich shop.  I got a club sandwich but the fries were actually what I ate for my meal.  Philly Cheesesteak fries.  Waffle fries covered in steak, cheese, onions and peppers.  It was sooooo gooooood!!

I headed to bed early to read before sleeping.  Rob got home and came to bed around ten stinking of garlic from the Korean BBQ he had been to.  I stopped reading around eleven and tried to sleep, but it was a no go.  I read some more and eventually got to sleep around one or so in the morning.  I just was not tired at all.  It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized what had happened.  I had coffee twice that day.  The last coffee around five in the evening.  Anyone that knows me fairly well knows that I am pretty sensitive to caffeine.  Coffee after one or two in the afternoon, I’m up for most of the night.  Oops!

Wednesday we had planned to go to a place called the Sheep Cafe and then Times Square, but little Joshua was having a bad day.  He was not in a good mood from the time he woke up, couple that with him headbutting the back of my skull and having a scream/cry session for about 15 minutes…he was just not having it.  (You better believe I felt horrible about the headbutt thing.  I had to go upstairs so no one saw me cry over it)   We had planned on having a “dead” day on Thursday so that we could possibly catch up on anything we hadn’t done on the trip, so we just moved that day to Wednesday instead.  That allowed Jim and Liz to stay home with the kids and try and get them back on track.

We did take a quick trip with Jim to the local McDonalds.  We had seen some Korea specific options advertised so we wanted to check it out.  We got a Bulgogi Burger and a Shrimp burger and of course some fries.  🙂  Jim got something called the “Hot All Over” burger, which I guess is an attempt that McDonalds is trying out to give a fresher more six dollar burger option.  It looked pretty good and Jim said it was much better than the usual Micky Dee’s fare.

Rob and I walked over to Itaewon and got some food souvenirs and a couple of hats for us before heading home.  Later we took a little nap (I mostly read), and then the boys went out to get pizza for dinner.  We got a Bulgogi pizza, and one that was half shrimp and half bacon and potato.  The crust on that one was mashed sweet potato with a cream cheese mix.  It was so freaking good I could barely stand it.

Soon after it was bed time, as the next day would be our last full day in Korea.