Asia Trip 2011 - Part 1

For those of you who didn't know, Eric and I are currently in the midst of our big trip of the year -- Korea (Oct 14th through 20th) and Taiwan (Oct 20th through 30th).

Seoul is a HUGE area... more of what we would consider a county in the US (or kind of like "the LA area"), and there are over 10 million people who live in Seoul proper, with another 10 million people in the surrounding suburbs. According to wikitravel, "by some measures it is the second largest urban agglomeration on the planet, after Greater Tokyo."

We landed in Seoul on Friday, October 14th and got to our hotel, which was super nice and very centrally located... that is one nice thing about traveling a lot for work, is utilizing all those miles and hotel points for vacation! We got settled in, and then went walking around Myung-dong, a trendy shopping area right by our hotel:

Lots of people out on the streets...

Lots of yummy street food (spicy rice cakes, fish cakes cooked in broth, various other snacks) everywhere:

The subway system is pretty awesome... super clean, very extensive and organized, frequent trains, and super cheap at less than 90 cents (USD) per ride. 

On Saturday, it started pouring rain. We stayed out of the rain by checking out a huge traditional food market area, and also by going shopping for clothes inside ginormous malls.

There were tons of stands that sold various food products at the market area:

So many red peppers!

Lots of different spicy side dishes:

One of the many ginormous shopping malls, with tons of clothes/accessory shops inside. We literally spent like 3 or 4 hours inside this one building, and there were several more the same size or bigger right on the same street:

Eric had a hard time fitting into Asian men sized clothes. This jacket was the largest size they had (XL) and too tight! Also, I thought the baby/kids clothes below were hilarious haha [pics below taken on phone]

On Saturday night, we met up with our friends Susan and Carlos (and Carlos' friend) and ate some delicious spicy chicken, cooked at your own table with veggies, rice cakes and noodles.

 

Another Seoul night scene in a different area:

Okay... more to come! We're currently in Taipei, our first night in Taiwan...