14 days in Seoul, Korea. 6 Months Pregnant
Back in February, we took a two-week family vacation to Seoul, Korea. After the trip, I drafted a few posts chronicling our travels, but neglected sorting through the gigabytes of pictures we brought back. I finally got around to it and I warn you, we’ll be playing a bit of catch up.
Inspired by one of my new favourite Canadian travel blogs, Thrifty Nomads, I’m adopting their “monthly round-up” to document our travel adventures. It’s a great format to summarize favourite moments of vacation; I’ll also throw in some personal finance tidbits in there! Beware, this post will be picture and information overload.
Highlights
Seoul was so good to us. With its delicious food, great shopping, and friendly people, it has made its way up to our top ten cities to visit.
Cost of Plane Tickets
We purchased our flight tickets during a pricing error on the Delta website. This one nine months before the trip; that is a long time, but tickets came out to be less than $1500- for three people! Our round trip ticket to Korea per person cost $470, taxes included; that is generally less than a domestic flight to Calgary!
Introducing the Kid to New Things
I love travelling with the kid. It is not easy, especially since I was also pregnant, but when you manage expectations, it is so much fun seeing a new place through my son’s perspective. He named the subway lines after characters from Thomas and Friends (the blue line was Thomas; the green Percy etc). He always asked for snacks, referring specifically to poop shaped pastries filled with chocolate. He learned more Korean words than I did and thought the words for “thank you” were hilarious. He called kimbab “sushi” and ate lots of dried seaweed. His favorite part of the trip was the flight to Seoul because was allowed to drink apple juice.
Food
I had compiled a list of 30 food Korean items I wanted to try… Needless to say, we managed to knock off 29 of the 30 items on the list.
I like to eat. I did not care to learn more about Korean history and culture or even see the sights; I wanted to feed the growing babe in my belly. My mission was to try foods that we’d never had before; we get pretty authentic Korean food here in Toronto- especially in my neighbourhood- but I wanted to eat things we were not familiar with. I compiled a list of 30 food items I wanted to try; the list included sannakji (raw baby octopus), galbijim (braised short ribs), and bindaetteok (mung bean pankcakes). It became a daily quest of ours to check items off my list, a constant hunt for the next meal. Daniel start the day asking, “what food adventure are we going on today?” or beg “Can we have something less adventurous for lunch??” Needless to say, we managed to knock off 29 of the 30 items on my list.
Korean Friendliness
Koreans are so friendly and kind! Both the kid and I were always offered a seat on the subway; sometimes I was even gently forced to sit down! Ajumamas (Korean middle-aged women) goggled at the kid- rambling in Korean about something or another- and offered him free food. When he responded with “hamsa-simida” (thank-you), they would squeal in delight and ramble some more. There was a language barrier, of course, but it did not prevent people from trying to chat; they would give unsolicited advice and directions in Korean, sprinkled with broken English and Mandarin. There was even an old man who engaged Daniel in a lengthy conversation- all in Korean- eventually asking to pat our child on the head with hand gestures.
Cafe Hopping
Seoul has a huge coffee culture (who knew?! I didn’t). There is a high density of cafes, and even districts and streets dedicated to coffee. We spent a couple of afternoons cafe-hopping and saw the quirkiest of coffee shops. Since I was limiting my caffeine intake, we didn’t bother with shops known to serve a good cuppa; instead, we ventured to one that would appeal to our toddler. His favourite cafes included one that had live sheep roaming about and another that was decked out in volkswagen paraphernalia.
Lowlights
Being pregnant deterred us from venturing outside the city.
Broken Stroller
On our way to Seoul, Deltabroke a wheel off our stroller, rendering it unusable. It took about a week to resolve the issue and we eventually received a replacement from the airline. During the week without a stroller, our little boy walked much as he could, but we ended carrying him around a lot. Not having a stroller also made it difficult for our boy to take his afternoon nap and we had to change our itinerary to accommodate an overtired jetlagged toddler.
Stuff is Expensive
Seoul is not cheap. Food was more expensive that I had anticipated; the cost of a meal was comparable to eating in the same thing in Toronto (for example, a bowl of kimchi jjigae averaged 9000 KRW* in Korea; it costs about $8 before tax and tip here in Toronto). Our accommodations had a small kitchen, but we found groceries at the stores nearby to be exorbitantly priced. Milk cost 6000 won for 2 litres; as much as I wanted fresh fruits and vegetables, I couldn’t bring myself to pay 5000 won for half a dozen bananas. We ended up exceeding the amount we had budgeted for food.
*Note: at the time of travel, approximately 1000 KRW = 1 CAD
Itinerary Changes
We planned to venture outside of Seoul to go hiking and see some other cities, but when the day came around, something would deter us from leaving the city. One day, our toddler woke up with a fever; we stayed in the entire day. Another day, I was experiencing pregnancy aches and pains, including severe sciatic nerve pain, and couldn’t walk for long periods of time; we went to the spa instead of hiking Seoraksan mountain. I was disappointed, to be honest, because I love hiking and had been looking forward to seeing some of Korea’s lovely mountains and national parks.
Accommodations
We stayed at a studio apartment a la AirBnB, on a recommendation from travel connoisseur Barry Choi over at Money We Have. The apartment was located near two subway lines. It was also walking distance to three big tourist attractions as well as a myriad of restaurants. All in all, it was in an extremely convenient locale. The owner of the apartment was extremely helpful; she helped sort out the whole stroller ordeal. She also offered use of a wireless data thingy majig for our phone which came in handy; we had constant access to maps and google, and never found ourselves lost.
Last Word
We became almost familiar with the city, walking the same route every day and passing people who would greet us with knowing smiles and friendly waves.
Seoul is dynamic and friendly, and ever so tasty. My main goal in Seoul was to eat, and boy did we get our fill! We had an enjoyable time completing an unofficial Korean food scavenger hunt and tried many new dishes. In between meals, we did make some time for some touristy experiences. We visited major attractions, like Nasam Tower, Lotte World, the fish market, DMZ, and a few palaces, but we also explored neighbourhoods in a slow leisurely pace. We were in Seoul for fourteen days. It is a lot of time to spend in that one city, but it turns out it was just right for a pregnant woman with a toddler. We became almost familiar with the city, walking the same route every day and passing people who would greet us with knowing smiles and friendly waves. We re-visited our favourite neighbourhoods and spent afternoons walking around aimlessly, just absorbing the surroundings culture.
We hope to return to Korea one day, with the intent of venturing outside of Seoul and completing hikes we didn’t get around to during this trip. The verdict on Seoul? Seoul was so good to us. With its delicious food, great shopping, and friendly people, it has made its way up to our top ten cities to visit.
