After my shower this morning I searched the whole bathroom for a towel. They provided approximately 18 perfectly folded hand towels but not a single bath towel. There were so many that I thought it couldn’t be a mistake. I dried my body off with the tiny towel, got dressed, and googled “Korea small towel”. I wanted to make sure I didn’t insult a culture before asking our Airbnb for a “real” towel.

Sure enough, this is a thing. Korean people don’t use big towels! They just dry off with a little one and then throw it in the laundry. The idea is that this is more sanitary to use a fresh one each day, and a big towel is unnecessary.

We also have a very traditional Korean “wet room” bathroom, where the whole room is the shower. So to set the scene after everyone’s showers this morning: our bodies were dry, our feet were soaking wet, and we walked naked through the apartment to get to our clothes.

After this we walked a couple of blocks away to stock up on some groceries. We always get the same stuff: milks (dairy and non-dairy), yogurt, cereal, coffee, and fruit. When I did the conversion to see how much we spent I was shocked. $65 for a bag of stuff!! The bag of 4 apples was $14 for some reason. It wasn’t a western / import store either. Compared to China, everything is significantly more expensive here.

After eating some of our expensive groceries for breakfast, we set out to visit a park that’s near our apartment. We ended up spending ALL day there.

It is called Children’s Grand Park, and it sure was. It had everything.

Soon after walking in we stumbled on the zoo section. It was free and you could just roam around and check out the animals. As always I felt sad for the zoo animals. But I was also amazed that this was just a public park.

After this we went to the amusement park area. Millie rode a carousel and we went on a semi-rollercoaster ride with a big drop. She loved it of course and screamed all the way down. As soon as she got off she wanted to do it again, alone! She has her dad’s thrill-seeking genes.

She played at a traditional playground and we stopped for a snack at the cafe. We walked through the gardens and heard music. Past the giant fountain there was a live performance of traditional music and dance.

And if that wasn’t enough—a zoo, an amusement park, live music, playgrounds, cafe, etc—we then stumbled upon the children’s museum in the park. Millie played here for a few hours until we had to drag her out at dinner time.

They had a weird exhibit about poop energy.

This trip has made me realize how different parks are around the world. This was one of the best I’ve been to, and it sounds like there are even better ones in Seoul.

Another thing to love? Clean park bathrooms. I’ll never take toilet paper for granted again after China. And all bathrooms here seem to have kid sinks.

We Ubered to a nearby neighborhood, Seongsu. The internet describes this as “the Brooklyn of Seoul”. It was very lively with lots of cute shops and instagrammable cafes. We had a beer at a craft brewery. I ordered a pumpkin beer (tis the season) and it was served in this.

We walked around until we saw a long line. So of course we got in the line blindly. Nick asked the lady behind us what the best thing to order was and she explained that they were famous for “neckbone soup”.

The line moved quickly and we sat down and ordered as we had been told to. The waitress brought us a giant bowl of soup with pork ribs and vertebrae. It was like DIY pulled pork, where we had to pull the soft meat off the bones.

It was great, especially on a cold evening. All the sides were delicious too. The perfect amount of spicy. The meat itself wasn’t spicy and even Millie ate some. It felt healthy after how greasy Chinese food was.

After dinner we saw yet another fast moving line we couldn’t resist, this time for egg tarts.

Flakey, buttery, salty, custardy. I am so full but they were so good.