The Climb to the Love Tower

Tuesday...

Today we went and found a Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool. We tried to sneak in to ring the bell but these guards came out of no where. That plan failed as quickly as it was thought up. But it was just this random little temple in the middle of Seoul. After that, Tiffany and I went to a bunch of different Daiso stores (like a glorified dollar store that has EVERYTHING) to find plates from the set she bought. It's been a long search, and all she has are three. Someday we'll find them...we search through every Daiso we find. I now know the location of every Daiso in South Korea. 

Tuna Cali teaches Rock the best thing in life!

For some reason, they didn't want us to sneak in and ring the bell...

Then we met Adam for lunch at the most delicious little cafe called Suji's. I had to get whatever had chocolate on the menu so I had these delicious chocolate chip pancakes. They looked really pretty before I took a few bites, but I couldn't wait to take a picture. These were delicious!

Tiff got a yummy pastrami sandwich that was good too!

Welcome to Itaewon!!!

Tiffany and Adam have been making me work out with them. Kind of pointless, I've already sweated off my weight because it's so dang hot and humid here. On Monday night we went to Crossfit on the military base and I got my trash kicked! Tonight's workout was to run up all the stairs to the top of Seoul Tower. It didn't seem like that big of a deal...until stair number two. That's when I was ready to give up. But we did it! And it just about killed us!

We have a false sense of security, not quite sure what we were thinking...

They had little workout places all along the way that I took advantage of

But we did it!!!

And we were exhausted!!

 The view was definitely worth the hike. They call it Locks of Love at Seoul Tower. People can go there and write a message to their sweetheart on a little padlock. Then you attach it to the walls of locks already there and it seals your love for eternity. As you can imagine, we saw TONS of couples there sealing their love. And as you've already guessed, since there are couples on dates in South Korea, they were all wearing matching outfits. YES!! The pictures we took are incredible and will be included in the upcoming blog about matching dates. So stay tuned! But Seoul Tower was a must see and had incredible views and the locks were pretty awesome to see too.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Tiff! She's being goofy like me!

Once you see past the haze, there's tons of mountains around Seoul

 We stayed up there to watch the sunset so we got to see Seoul in daylight, sunset and at nighttime. That was really fun and had absolutely breath taking views!

The benches here are set up so that they force you to sit close to each other in the middle. I guess it's the Love Tower for a reason!

They had another cool little temple thing at the top of the mountain by the tower!

 At 8:00 they did a show on the tower and they lit it up like it was a giant movie screen. We bought a churro and watched the show. It was pretty neat! They turned it into an aquarium, a drumming stage, crazy dancers, cool designs, Hello Kitty...pretty much anything you can think of, they projected onto the tower!

After running up to the tower, we couldn't be defeated and had to run back down it. It goes a lot faster that way! It was exhausted and I'm pretty sure my legs are still sore! The whole time we were running up and down I kept thinking to myself, "I can do hard things!" Thanks mom and dad, you've taught me some great life lessons. 

I am the Master Commander!

We did hard things!

 At the bottom of the tower they had some pretty neat rocks that had writing on them. I have no idea what they said, but they were cool to look at. 

Wednesday...
Before naps, Tiffany and I took the kids to the National Science Museum. It would have been better if the kids were about 5-7 years old, but we had fun building buildings in the Kids Space and then knocking them over. Baby Cali makes a great Calizilla. Especially with that fiesty little attitude of hers! She can be an ornery cus. We don't know why we love her, but we do! My family sang that to me while I was growing up, and that's what we sing to her. She is the master tantrum thrower and is very opinionated and will let you know it. But she can also be the biggest sweetheart in the world. She definitely fulfills the name of Cali. I'm proud of that! (Not sure if that's a good thing though...)

Rock and I were being Korean pilots and flight attendants!

After naps, Tiffany and I went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant, NThai, while Adam watched the kids. He's the best. He let Tiff and I go out each night and do all the things around here that we couldn't do during the day with kids. After we ate, we drove around to try and find the Trick Eye Museum. We found it, but we couldn't find a place to park. So we parked at the temple and went and ate crepes and waffles. Both covered in chocolate. I was in heaven! 

This was soo spicy. I ate about four bites before I was done. Tiff handled it a lot better. 

Koreans don't drink much water I've decided. Every restaurant has these mini cups that is only the size of a swallow. 

There was some parade or something going on as we drove through the streets to find a parking place. 

 Here's the thing about Korean drivers. They don't have any rules. Here's what I've learned about driving in Korea:

You can go as fast as you want

Park wherever you'd like, even if it's in the middle of the intersection or on a sidewalk

Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way and can use the street as a sidewalk

Make your own lanes, the lines on the street are just suggestions

NO TURNING LEFT! You must drive straight through then make a U-Turn and turn right to turn left

Your horn must be honked every five minutes

Please ignore red lights and stop signs, we don't even know who put those up...some kind of joke

Scooters have free reign of everything 

It's ok to stop traffic and block intersections in order to be first 

Your GPS doubles as a TV so please watch as you drive

On your scooter, please use your phone as your TV and watch

Try to fit as many people in your car as you can, and don't buckle up or wear helmets

Try to squeeze as many parked cars, moving vans, scooters, people and cars into the skinniest streets

Those are just a few of the rules I've learned as we've driven around Korea. 

Look what we found!! Tiff sure does miss Texas!

We got some delicious Nutella crepes from DrinkFunFun. And then got a waffle from a stand nearby that was incredible. It was smothered in butter and maple syrup so we added strawberry syrup and chocolate sauce. We should be in a sugar coma right now. I'm just trying to cancel out last night's run to the Tower...

LDS Temple at night