Saturday

Whew--busy couple of weeks.  Mike and I both worked night shift, but at different times, and work has been a little more busy for me these days.  It's all good, though.  Mike was able to come down to Seoul for the weekend, and since our weekends actually match (not a common occurrence, with Mike's training exercises and my shift work), we get to spend three glorious days together.

We slept in a bit this morning, then went to the gym at the ah-pah-tu.  It's pretty convenient, and really not a bad facility.

Some of the equipment makes me laugh though:

 

These may look like harmless hoola-hoops, but they're weighted and textured on the inside.  Ow!



 





Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h  the booty-jiggler



We finished up our workout by running up the stairs--33 flights.  Or, let me be honest, Mike ran up the stairs, and I ran/jogged/stopped for a minute to gasp for air/trudged up another couple flights/felt like crying/put on a burst of speed and made it up one more floor/almost died.  But I made it up.  We cleaned up, and set out for an afternoon of exploring.

 

First stop was Changdeok-gung, one of the Chosun Dynasty-era palaces in Seoul.  Frommers gave us some bad gouge, though, and we didn't get there in time for the English tour.  I was all up for taking the Korean tour and making my long-suffering husband translate, but he begged off, and took me to the close-by shopping distract of Insadong.  Frommers is right about this place--it is in fact "filled with art galleries, ceramics stores, and traditional handicraft shops."  My kind of place!  Did I mention my husband is long-suffering?

This was one of the markets within the market.  Fun!

We spent about three hours at the market, and only made it about halfway down the street.  (I wonder how long into our marriage it will be before my sweet husband stops indulging me by letting me go into every store that catches my fancy.)  I thoroughly enjoyed browsing.  And we both enjoyed some street food--we sampled some red bean custard mini-pancakes, cinnamon honey iced tea, and spun sugar almond candies.  So yummy!

Our finds from the day (guess who did most of the shopping!)

Italian for dinner, from one of the restaurants downstairs in our ah-pa-tu building.  Then desserts to take home--cream "bahng" (bread) for Mike, and chocolate souffle for me.  Served on our new china, with muscato in our new crystal.  So nice!

Ahhhh, what a great day.