Roaming With the Roddens: Seoul

We loved our time in Beijing, but we were advised by many people to get out of there before the entirety of China had days off for Chinese National Day, so we decided when we booked our trip to spend the last few days of our break to visit Seoul, South Korea. If you know us well, you know that Joe is half-Korean so it was exciting to visit this place he has wondered about for so long. We arrived in Korea and checked into our hotel in Gangnam and then headed straight to a Korean professional baseball game to watch the NC Dinos against one of the local teams. Joe decided to support the Dinos, for some reason, and it ended up being a great choice because they went out and destroyed the Bears.

Some of the food choices for the baseball game -
we stuck with fried chicken!

The baseball stadium was right next to the old Olympic Stadium

Joe would have you know that, if you are a baseball fan, you must catch a game in Korea if you are ever there. The atmosphere is unlike anything we could have expected. Outside the stadium was a carnival-like atmosphere and inside was even more fun. Both teams have a, for lack of better word, yell leader and dance team that lead their fans in cheers, songs, and grand revelry while their team is up to bat. The Dinos hit, hit, and hit some more and won the game 17-3, so the yell leader and his dancers got a great three hour workout in and Lindsay loved watching him do his thing. Joe loved the baseball and it was an amazing experience!

The next day, we toured all the best neighborhoods around Seoul and enjoyed a wonderful visit to the Korean War Memorial, which was very informative and interesting. We also found the place to get the best street food in the city and enjoyed ourselves as we tasted the delicious delights that Korea has to offer. The street food here was TOTALLY different from that in Beijing....it was delicious!! We also enjoyed some delicious Korean barbecue at traditional restaurants and loved seeing this amazing city.

At the Korean War Memorial/Museum

This sign was posted at the War Memorial, but was HIGHLY ineffective!

7-Eleven happens to be EVERYWHERE in this part of the world!!

Some DELICIOUS Korean BBQ. Beef Bulgogi is our favorite!

You cook the food right on your own table.

One of the coolest things about our visit is the fact that we were able to connect with one of Joe's former students from Baytown Christian, Monica. She was a foreign exchange student at BCA and Joe was there for her senior year. He was a strong influence on her in that time as her Bible teacher and Chaplain. She graduated from BCA and then went on to the University of Texas and graduated early. She is now home in Seoul with her family and working in PR and doing great. We met her when she got off of work one evening and she took us for some delicious dinner and then for some of the coolest and tastiest ice cream we have ever tried. She showed us the Seoul Tower and then walked us around Gangnam. It was awesome to catch up with her!

A piece of Baytown in Seoul!

This ice cream was seriously yummy!

Some scrumptious grilled pork!

Our final day in Korea we caught another baseball game, this time watching Korean powerhouse the Samsung Lions play in Seoul against the hometown Nexen Heroes. It was an exciting game between two good teams but nowhere near as fun as the first game we watched that was filled with Dino-mite offense!

Seoul is an amazing city, one of our favorites that we have ever visited. The people are friendly and helpful and the city is so clean and well laid out. The metro system is great and things in the city run efficiently and with common sense, so this was a huge blessing after the last two-plus years in Kuwait and China. We are hoping to make it back there in the spring, if only for a weekend, and we highly recommend Seoul to anyone thinking of visiting!