http://picasaweb.google.c…2007BackToSeoul

After a long evening of skiing, in the morning, we decided to take a bus another hour away to Sorak Waterpia in order to soak our sore muscles and relax. This place was much different than Dragon Hill Spa as it catered more towards families with children. They had an indoor water park area with a wave pool and community pools and saunas plus they had outdoor hot springs with different minerals and different temperatures. In the separate men and women areas, they had saunas and hot springs as well, up to 41 degrees Celsius.

Susan and I also went to try their ginseng scrub where they scrub and wash your face, body, and hair. It was quite a rough experience and you sort of feel like a piece of meat. The ladies who perform the services are wearing their underwear (looked like black lace lingerie) and they’re chatting (but sounds like scolding) with each other the whole time. It’s like they don’t really acknowledge you but are just doing their work.

This place was more expensive too, I think the admission is something around 30,000Won plus you have to pre-charge your RFID bracelets with money in order to spend on food, rentals, and services. Not like the other spa where you pay afterwards.

Afterwards we headed on a bus back to Seoul and went to have “duk bok kee” (rice cake) at Sindandong. The restaurant was named “I Love Sindandong” and we found it in our Korea guide book so thought we’d check it out.

They gave us bibs in case we splashed the spicy red sauce on us:

The dishes had ramen, clear vermicelli, boiled eggs, rice cake, fish cake, seafood, and lots of other things. The most interesting was the rice cake shaped like balls filled with cheese.

We were very pleasantly full after our late night dinner.

http://picasaweb.google.c…nHillSpaAndJUMP

Today we decided to spend the day relaxing, we’d been walking around so much and our beds at the hostel are not comfortable, so we’d become quite achy all over.

So we tried out this place called Dragon Hill Spa. It’s a 10,000Won (approx USD10) entrance fee and with that you could spend quite a few hours there as there are things like a salt sauna, steam sauna, firewood sauna, hot water saunas, etc. They have other things which you can pay extra for like massages, manicures, facials, etc. Once you pay the entrance fee, they give you this RFID bracelet that you can use to “charge” food and services. Before you leave, you have to pay up for everything before they let you exit the place. Kind of a neat concept. It’s like ad hoc services, no appointments required.

We decided to try out the Meridian Sports Massage which was 100,000Won (approx USD100) for 100 minutes. It was seriously the most painful massage I’ve ever had but your muscles feel so loose afterwards. The massage is done with your clothes on and they really massage every inch of your body, including each one of your toes! They stretch you and twist you. They actually use their feet to massage you by standing on you. My masseuse even cracked my neck. It felt good to relieve that pressure in my neck. It was so comfortable… makes me want to go get another massage right now.

They serve snacks inside and yes they do have those soy sauce eggs that you see in Korean dramas. (Actually I didn’t know about those eggs until Ron & Susan mentioned them because I’ve never watched Korean dramas.) There is also a full service restaurant inside as well.

The women’s sauna was a bit weird though since it is separate from the men’s, everyone is completely unclothed and just wandering around from pool to pool and room to room. There’s only soap bars and no shampoo or conditioner so in this way it’s different from the day spas I’ve been to in US. But the nakedness all around is just something I think you’d have to get used to.

After our relaxing afternoon, we headed to go watch another performance called “JUMP” which is non-verbal Martial Arts show. It’s about this crazy Korean family that all do Martial Arts and it has a love story and “action” in it. It was quite hilarious but not sure if it was as funny as “NANTA”.

After the show, we found ourselves a Korean BBQ Restaurant which only served pork. We were actually looking for beef so we didn’t eat that much there and instead went to wander the streets looking for more food. Unfortunately, we did not find any beef BBQ so instead, we had seafood. I guess that doesn’t make logical sense but we were still hungry. We ended up having a huge clam (about the size of a softball) and something we think is a sea apple.

Giant clam in spicy sauce.

Sea apple.

Sea apple sashimi, reminded me a bit of sea urchin sashimi because of it’s bitter taste but its texture is different, kind of crunchy but also soft.

Today was a nice way to spend Christmas Eve. Tomorrow we head to the mountains for some skiing!

More pictures to view:

http://picasaweb.google.c…dExploringSeoul

This morning we visited the Changdeokgung Palace. At times like this, I wish I had a better camera. The palace had been rebuilt several times due to fire and after each restoration, the architecture changed a little bit. Sometimes more Western (like glass windows) or reverting back to traditional ways (like making rooms smaller and less open).

The tour was only 2000 or 3000 Won (2-3USD) and in English, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. It’s about 1 hr and 20 minutes and I think definitely worth it.

Afterwards we visited the Jilsiru Rice Cake Cafe that specializes in traditional Korean rice cakes. These seemed to be desserts, they had flavors like peanut, black sesame, apple, and pumpkin. A light afternoon snack.

We then went to Jirisan Restaurant that serves a traditional Korean meal consisting of vegetables, tofu, and seafood. I think it was about 20 different side dishes including rice.

After lunch we did some shopping at the Insadong area and these people offered to take a picture for us to wish our family happy holidays. It was probably some sort of marketing thing but did it for the heck of it.

Then we headed to watch a show called Nanta, aka Cookin’. It’s a nonverbal show, using cooking instruments like pots, pans, knifes, wisks, etc to make music and interesting sounds. It was a good show and very funny. I’d recommend it if it’s coming to a town near you or if you’re visiting Korea. It reminds me of the Blue Man Group except that it deals with food and that the crowd is much more cozy, less people.

It was freezing but we headed to MyengDong to see the Christmas lights and have dinner with Ron’s Korean classmate Sang-ho.

We ate a noodle place that also served xiao long bao. The place was really busy but also really fast. They only have 4 items on their menu so that’s probably why they could speed through so many customers. The noodles are fresh made so were excellent. It was really good on such a cold night.

Xiao Long Bao:

Noodles with dumplings:

Spicy cold noodles:

Oh, I also forgot to mention we ate bugs!! For the last few days we’ve been seeing these food stalls selling things that look like beetles. Sang-Ho said they are silk worm larvae which are roasted and a bit seasoned and he offered to buy us some to try. I could only eat one… it has a sort of nutty taste which was okay but the thought of eating bugs just grossed me out too much.

The last thing we ate for the night was dessert at a place called Red Mango which serves frozen yogurt with fresh fruit and tapioca. It was freezing outside but being nice and cozy inside, the frozen yogurt hit the spot.

We went shopping for a bit but most things were closing so we had to call it a night. It’s truly been a long adventurous day so it’ll be nice to relax tomorrow when we go to the spa!

More photos from the day (LOTS!):