Vietnam: Layover In Seoul, Korea

Our flight arrived in Seoul, Korea just after 5:00 am which was 3:30 am our body time from Vietnam. I of course didn't sleep on the flight. But we had 6 hours of touring ahead of us through the airport's free transit tours for those with extended layovers. We started the day with a quick one hour tour to Yonggungsa Temple (anciently called Baekunsa Temple). There are two zelkova trees there that are hundreds of years old and thought to have fertility powers. I tried not to stand too close the tree! It was a good 20 minute bus ride both ways for this tour and I think our favorite part was sleeping on the bus. Then we went on a 5 hour city tour. This time we had an hour commute both ways to the city. The Seoul airport is not anywhere close to the city! We stopped and walked through a village where we got to go look at a traditional Korean home and garden. I thought it was very considerate and patriotic that Scott dressed up as the Korean flag for our short one day tour of Seoul! Next we went to a market for lunch. This market was huge! The only problem was, every vendor was making and selling the exact same food. This can really be a problem if you don't like what they are selling! Layton found the one vendor that had something different - it was a dessert vendor but after seeing his other options of whole pig heads, fried squid and live octopus, he couldn't have been happier to eat sweet waffles and a smoothie for lunch! Scott and I shared a mung bean pancake and some pumpkin and dumpling soup. We walked around the market a bit, which seemed to deal in textiles of sorts. We saw lots of furs, fabrics, and knitting. Then we were back in the bus for another hour nap as we headed back to the airport. I realized that I had left my Vietnamese hat on the first tour bus! Some greater force does not want me to take home a Vietnamese hat! But luckily Scott found our first tour bus and the hat was still on it! The weather here was heating up by the end of our tours but felt delightful after the sweltering heat of Vietnam. Thanks to these tours, we only had about 3 1/2 hours to wait at the airport before our flight. But the airport was nice, air conditioned, free wi-if and padded seats on which we could lie all the way across. Plus Layton found a Dunkin Doughnuts to spend our last Korean Won at! It was such a wonderful trip and I feel like we can say we did and saw all we really wanted to. But it is true...there is no place like home!

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