Seoul Zoo and DMZ

Days two and three of our trip were spent at the Seoul Zoo and the Demilitarized Zone with North Korea.
The Seoul Zoo was about a forty five minute ride on the subway, and it is an absolute spectacular spot for a zoo. It's very hilly but beautiful. I didn't take many pictures of the animals because the landscape was so incredible.

It was a pretty long walk just to get in the zoo, but very worth it.

Avie and the meerkats were friends.

It was COLD up there!

The next day was really cold so we thought it a good day to ride on a bus up the the DMZ or demilitarized zone. I was going to just send Dan because none of the rest of us really wanted to go but as usual I was wrong. It was really interesting...and now I can say I've seen North Korea, from a safe distance.
Our first stop on our tour was Imjingak (Nuri Peace Park).

Next, we went to the DMZ. We couldn't go into the room with guards from both North and South Korea because children are not allowed on that tour but we were able to go into the "Third Tunnel", one of the tunnel's discovered by South Korea for another planned invasion from the North. It was pretty cool.

Cameras were not allowed in the tunnel but it was pretty cool. We had to wear helmets and I understand why going in. The whole thing is pretty solid granite and one bonk on the head could probably be serious.
Finally, we went to the border!

Well, hello North Korea.

A Week in Seoul

Considering how amazing Seoul is, it's surprising that it's taken me this long to blog about our visit, but, it's Thanksgiving week and we're busy. Seoul is an amazing city, pretty you could say, reminded me of San Fransisco a bit with its hills. Seoul is usually more temperate than here in Misawa but the week we chose to go it was colder than here. It was high 40s to low 50s pretty much the entire time but the fall colors I think we're at their peak, so not a bad week considering.

We stayed at the Dragon Hill Lodge, it's on an army installment right in central Seoul.

The first place we visited was the war museum.

It is a really impressive building.

Rayce thought this place was pretty cool!

The inside was pretty impressive too, but the kids could probably pass and explore the outside all day. Next we went to a Buddhist temple and they had a chrysanthemum festival going on! I was so excited because we missed the one here in Hirosaki to go to the salmon festival.

This was day 1. More to come!

Champions

Seriously November, slow down! I can't believe we're almost into Christmas season already. We've been out of town the last week visiting Seoul on vacation, and I have lots and lots of photos to share but before, I needed to post something I should have a while ago that is so important.

The Med Group Soccer team which Dan was apart of are the base champions!! Whew, I feel better.

Rokkasho Salmon Catch

One of the things they do here in Japan that I definitely didn't want to do is the salmon catch. Humungous pools are filled with salmon and then you're let loose in the pool to try and catch a salmon with your hands. We were going to go to the Hirosaki Chrysanthemum Festival again but last minute we decided to give the salmon catch a try.

Because the festival sells out pretty quick, or so we heard, we doubted there would be any tickets left to catch salmon by the time we got there, but we were able to get one so Dan and Rayce could go in together.

I felt bad for the boys, it was not a warm day, but they wanted to go in.

Off they went! You only have 3 minutes to catch a fish!

Got one, well two actually. Dan caught one pretty quick but let it go because it didn't put up enough fight, he didn't want a sickly fish! Rayce was a little traumatized that we were catching the fish to kill and eat them...my sensitive guy. He was able to go play some festival games and got over it. The salmon catch was not something I especially wanted to do but I'm glad we went, it was a unique experience!