Disney around the World - Day 2 Part 1 - Exploring Korea

Time for our first day of exploring Korea! I was super tired the night before, having been awake for over 24 hours. I closed my eyes at 10:30pm hoping for a restful night sleep... but it was not to be. The kids' sleep schedule is way off, due to the traveling. Theresa and I figured something like this would happen. It's 2:30am and both kids are wide awake. Because we have two separate rooms, I headed over to the kids room and let T sleep.

After laying with them in bed for 30 minutes, it was clear that they weren't going back to sleep.

Both of the kids looking out the window.
Ian - Look Alli! It's a whole new world!

One of the things I like to do with the kids when they can't sleep is toss them into the shower. They used plastic cups and other things we could find around room for toys. After they got tired of that, I rotated them one at a time into the shower while I played thought games with the other one.
I talked to them about all the fun stuff we had done the day before and all the fun stuff we had planned for the day. That kept us busy for 3 hours until T rolled out of bed at 5:30am.

At 6:30am it was time for breakfast! Our hotel has a great breakfast with a great selection, and with T's hotel status, instead of being $25 each, it's included free!

The kids were able to find enough fruits, meats, and pastries to keep them happy.

And we've got a pretty good view of the city from up here too.

Look at this adorable omelet. So tiny.

At 8am we met up with Ruston and Jacob, ready to attack the day.

I bet we spent 10 minutes with the concierge talking about what kind of things to do today. He gave us a map and showed us where things were, good times to visit, and things that might be closed. Overall, very helpful.

Ruston and Jacob didn't have anyone waking them up super early like we did, so they were still looking to get breakfast. I know the perfect place and it's right across the street!
It's just a little chilly here this early in the morning so I was happy to have our jackets.

Do we have to cross a busy street to get to the other side? No! There's a giant underground mall (though many shops aren't open yet) and you can skip the busy traffic and pop out where you need to on the other side of the street!

I made the observation that our first dinner together with Jacob and Ruston when we visited Paris was Korean food. Now for our first breakfast together in Korea we're eating at Paris Baguette.

Inside were plenty of fresh breads to eat.

Ruston got a strawberry smoothie which he let everyone try. I was a little surprised it came in a coffee mug. Alli was happy he decided to share.

As I had mentioned before, on this trip Theresa and I packed 2 strollers in our carry-on luggage. For all the places we're going on this 2 week trip, there's going to be a lot of walking. It wouldn't be fair to have the kids try to do all that, especially at the pace we go, and stay in a good mood. I also didn't want to be carrying around a 45 pound kid everywhere when they got tired. I tracked how many miles we were walking every day, and on average we did 12 miles a day, with one day even hitting 17 miles.

So, why I decided to leave one stroller in the room for this first leg of the day, I don't know. The kids were in good spirits though and had a lot of fun sharing the stroller.

It's not exactly comfortable for the person on bottom, but they mixed it up.

This morning that's our ultimate destination. The Seoul Tower. It was visible from the hotel and just about anywhere in the city that wasn't blocked by a building.

To get there though it was going to be a walk.

Uphill.

And where there weren't ramps, there were stairs. It was a nice brisk morning though and everyone was still happy to get out and stretch our legs.

Finally we had made it to the base of the hill. There's a few different ways to get to the top. A gondola, this stairway, and a nice walking path.

Having had enough of the stairs by this point, a nice leisurely walk sounded perfect. Even if it takes a little longer it was a beautiful morning.

The walking path was pleasant. There were other people enjoying the morning, including adults walking with their much older parents. It was really nice to see.

Even the bathrooms on the walking path are fancy.

The other thing we remarked on was how quiet it was. People were there, but it wasn't loud. Even the people keeping it clean were using old brooms to sweep the path.

There's going to be lots of group pictures.

Everything was quiet until we found this one guy with a leaf blower.

The kids enjoyed the walk. There was a little stream of water going along the side.

After walking for quite some time and seemingly no closer to the Seoul Tower, Ruston and Jacob practiced a little bit of their Korean and google translation app to get some directions. These people were super friendly and very willing to help out a few lost Americans.

Oops! Well I guess this path won't take us up to the tower. It was still a very enjoyable morning walk. And when we were talking amongst ourselves about our favorite parts of Korea, this wrong-way accident was one of Theresa's favorite memories of Korea. The leaves were just starting to change colors and everyone was outside enjoying the hike together.

Smile kids! You're going to be doing that a lot this vacation.

After making our way back to the start of the trail, we're going to make our way to the top of Mt. Namsan using the Namsan Cable car. And we'll pick it up from there in the next installment.