Scott in Seoul: Part II

It's Chelsea's dad here again. My first days in Seoul have been uneventful.  As of Wednesday morning, still no luggage.  I guess my luggage spent an additional day in Beijing seeing the sights.  I did call in the morning and was informed they were in Korea, or perhaps that was just to get the American off the phone...  Oh well, more waiting for me.  

Chelsea took me on a mini orientation tour around the ‘hood.  Wow, I am so amazed she has lived here for over 9 months.  Chelsea is quite a unique young lady.  Very confident and adventurous.  We had breakfast at the famous (by Chelsea) Paris Baguette,  pastries and Americano coffee.  Then we went over to the bank to exchange some US dollars for Korean won.  Then we went to a little store to buy a few essentials for Chelsea; I hope to not need to buy anything with the arrival of my bags eventually.

I walked with her to work so I would know where it was. It’s not a bad walk, no rain despite some threatening looking clouds. Then I was on my own for the remainder of the day, until Chelsea got off work at 9 pm.  That gave me about 8 hours to explore the local area.  I did a lot of walking, I think I hit 10,000 steps because I was wiped out by early evening.  Between jet lag and all the walking, I was really exhausted.  So, I headed back to the room for a nap. Two hours later, I woke up a little groggy but awake enough for dinner.

My first Korean meal was, Korean BBQ.  Now this is not what you think of when I say BBQ.  It is more like Korean grilling.  Here, you do the grilling on a grill/dinner table.  It was very cool.  The meal was beef, veggies, roasted garlic, kimchi and you can’t have a BBQ or grilling with out a nice cold brew. All in all it was very good, I can see doing that again sometime in the next couple days.  

Some good news came around 2pm on Thursday: my bags were heading to Chelsea’s apartment.  YEA!!  They arrived around 3pm.  I began unpacking a few “happy’s” for Chelsea and got my stuff organized into on suit case.  The other is some extra space for items for Chelsea to return to the States.

I brought my running gear with me, per Chelsea’s request, so I went on a 4 mile run along the river down from her apartment. It was totally lined with trees that branched overhead so the sun (what little is shining right now) didn’t beat down. But the humidity was very high.  Regardless, it felt good to get out and burn a few calories.  

With my luggage finally here, I can now begin to settle down and enjoy my trip.  This weekend is going to be a busy one!