The night of May 3rd was filled with excitement, laughter, anticipation, and yearning. In only a few short hours we would be on a plane to Seoul. We traveled by bus at around 3:00am to the PIT airport where we spent 40 minutes in line, due to us getting there early. Fortunately, our connecting flight to Georgia was only an hour and went by quick. I wish I could say the same for our 2nd flight. The total duration was 15 hours, thankfully I slept in total for about 12 hours. For the remaining three hours, I was either eating, watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or talking to Taylor, my soon to be roommate in Seoul. When we finally landed on May 4th, nothing but excitement flowed through me. There were so many possibilities. Where would we eat? Who would we meet? What would we see? And so on.
After arriving at our hotel we purchased various street food items, explored the neighboring streets, saw cats at a cat café, and of course we had to go to the 7/11 for a late-night snack. The whole day was extremely long but so rewarding once we got there. After our late-night snack, we all found ourselves retreating to our beds to rest up for the next day’s activities.
Bright and early Monday morning around 7:30am I awoke to my alarm going off. I quickly got ready for the long day ahead of us and got to breakfast in the lobby, meeting up with my fellow piers. First on the agenda was visiting this waterfall walkway. Many many pictures later we were already walking to the Gyeongbokgung Palace where we saw the changing of the guards. Exploring the buildings and architecture was fascinating and vastly different. The weather this day was not in our favor as it was wet, cold, and rainy. Nonetheless, we were able to make a good day out of it. After the palace, we saw the Blue House where we again had a short guided tour. Then came…DINNER!!!
We had a family style dinner that was within walking distance of our hotel. The restaurant even had traditional hanboks which we were able to try on afterwards. They were so pretty and it was such a cool experience to see everyone in one. We ventured back to our hotel where we got ready to go out and survey the beautiful city that we had yet to truly explore. Another 7/11 trip later and at least 2,000 steps walked, we found ourselves roaming the streets of Myeongdong itching to go back to our rooms to take a steaming shower. After the jam-packed day we had, a hot shower seemed like the perfect way to end the night.
