Daily Life Around Seoul

Well… I’m still alive. I took some time to settle in and have some experiences before I shared much more of our daily life. Here we are, coming up on 4 months in Seoul and I feel like we are pretty much where I expected we would be. We are well into a routine and starting to feel like we have most things sort of figured out. Here is what we have been up…

Playing the Tourist with Visitors

We had our first visitors and were able to plan a bunch of fun “tourist” activities… which was great because we hadn’t seen most of them yet either. Bukchon Hanok Village, Shopping in Myeongdong and a Han River moonlight cruise were all great to see and made better by the beautiful early fall weather.

As the fall weather has come, we have tried to spend as much time outside as possible, before the cold winter sets in. Being from the PNW, it takes some serious foliage to impress me, but the turning of the gingko trees to bright yellow is pretty beautiful (even if their berries smell like barf – thank you Brynn for that fun fact). Fall in the City is especially fun, because people are out and about everywhere enjoying the 70 degree weather. We managed to fit in some hikes to Seoul Forest Park (think Central Park), some visits outside the city and and some extras in there as well.

We went to see Harry Potter in concert with a full orchestra, and have a front row view of Seoul’s International Firework Festival from our living room window. Also, throw in a visit to a cat cafe for Brynn, in which she fell in love with a cat named Walnut. All in all… some good fun.

As for the actual feelings of living abroad, it still has many of the benefits that I hoped it would have. We are happy in Seoul, quality of life is great and the international schools are everything I hoped they would be.

Sure, there are moments of loneliness and many of missing those we love. I wish to be with so many of you and hear how your life is going, in person. Being new anywhere takes time to adjust, but it also makes you feel so very alive. There is so much new-ness and discovery… how could it ever be boring?

Last stop for this post will be our visit to the Changdeokgung Palace. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has a beautiful secret garden worth the extra ticket price and we explored all the grounds before stopping at the famous Onion cafe. Yes, all those baked goods were delicious and I will bring anyone here who comes to visit Seoul.

Our daily life in Seoul has definitely picked up, but we are exploring our new City with enthusiasm as much as we can.