An almost white Christmas in Seoul

Simon and I flew over to Seoul a week before Christmas, to catch up with the lovely Kerrie and Pierre.

Many, many photos were taken (encouraged by the new camera Kerrie asked us to procure from Melbourne for her), which makes for hard decisions on my part as to which to include here!

We had a great time sightseeing around Seoul, with Kerrie and Pierre organising an itinerary that was full of varying activities, sights and cultural experiences.

We went to the National Museum to see a display of traditional and contemporary Korean dancing that was organised especially for foreigners.

The display took a turn to become a 'workshop' with the choreographer grappling with us foreigners to convey grace, poise and delicate but deliberate movements

The photo of Simon and Pierre says it all, its just a pity we didn't capture the audio - the singing they had to accompany their graceful moves with is sorely missing here!





Coffee shops and Korean sweets were an absolute treat - especially the enormous range of options at 'Kim's Club' (think DJ's food court, but three times the size). Coffee Buns were Simon's fav!



This photo was taken in a French patisserie, with macaroons in a display cabinet and specialty chocolates displayed like a jeweller dresses up their wares!

There were visits to Seoul’s huge markets where we stocked up on western cooking goods and had a squiz at the fabric market, check out the range of this store!

Pierre took us up to Seoul Tower for a fantastic view of the city, you really get a taste of just how large Seoul is, it sprawls across hills as far as the eye can see (or as far as my eye could see on the mildly smoggy day we encountered!).

Simon got very excited on our walk down the mountain when he passed a bus hooked up to an electric charging station and had an animated hand gesture conversation with the driver who spoke little English but got the gist of Simon’s thumbs up!

As well as the amazing restaurants we went to, Kerrie cooked us delicious Korean dishes – yum! Korean food is a new favourite of mine, particularly dolsot bibimbap - a rice, meat, veggies and egg dish placed on a very hot stone boal, you mix and cook the egg using the stone's heat, while the rice goes crispy against the bowl - it is high on my all time food favourites!

For Christmas we were joined by Simon's friends Lachlan and Emma, who are currently living and teaching in Japan. We had lots of fun exchanging amusing gifts such as couples rugs, finger twister and mickey mouse underwear to name a few!

Simon got into the Christmas spirit, making a swag of gingerbread stars and piling them into a gingerbread Christmas centerpiece, which we dribbled with melted chocolate and covered with icing 'snow' - it didn't last past Christmas night!

Kerrie cooked up a storm, with a banquet of Christmas food and even a flaming Christmas pudding!


There was lots of sightseeing around the city centre and it sure was chilly! We were pretty lucky with the weather, instead of the -20'C that hit Seoul the week after we left, we had about 4'C to -10'C or so - still enough for thermals, scarfs, beanies and feet and hand warming packs!

Oh, and there was snow! It snowed the day after Christmas, and was incredibly pretty - but slippery for those of us (*cough* Simon *cough*) who had worn out his soles and had to hang on to others walking down the street!

After Christmas, Kerrie and Pierre had lined up shows and tours for us! There was the B-boys whose energy was incredible, a cultural food tour of seoul and a Cooking with Nanta show - lots of fun!

Guys making strings of sugar/honey and
filling them with peanuts - all with a
performance and characters to boot!

Enjoying traditional tea in a cute tea room complete
with free-flying finches flying overhead and cats
licking their lips outside the window!

One of our tour stops was a traditional
korean lunch, with many dishes,
lots of chilli and new tastes!

Pots of kim-chi stored outside the
lunch restaurant to escape their
permeating smell!

A dried mushroom store - on our food tour

Outside our last bar stop - Korean wine with mugwort
It looked very murky, but was yum!

 There's so much that I could have included here - Simon's tanty during family Scrabble(!), further food experiences, visiting the running club, braving the cold of walking along the river at -10'C and hearing Lachlan and Emma's Japanese stories.

It was an unforgettable 9 days - Thanks Kerrie and Pierre :)

^Photos courtesy of Kerrie's new SLR and Lachlan and Emma - thanks guys!