Dinner with the Parks

The Youngstroms were gone so I went up to the pool for a bit. All was swell until I tried to get back down to change and get ready for dinner. The elevator wasn’t working. I couldn’t find the stairs so I had to ask the towel boy. He showed me another elevator but this made me 4 minutes late to meet the Parks. Oops! The Parks were all dressed and in the lobby when I arrived. They had parked in the basement of the hotel. They asked me if we I wanted to walk or drive to dinner. I told them it was up to them so they decided to drive since it was still pretty hot out. It was a quick drive to a restaurant near a palace. We got out and were given our own private room. First we exchanged gifts.
The kids loved the giant chocolate penny I gave them. The father ordered and then the food began coming in. Michelle, the little girl, got a kids meal. It was in a nice wooden partitioned box. I should have take pictures of every course but I didn’t want to be rude so I’ll try to remember what I had. It was a bunch of courses but everything was super small. We started with some salads 3 half dollar sized portions. Then came in the jelly noodles. These were not my favorite but I ate some of the salads and noodles. Next we had super thin sliced pork, then a shrimp and jellyfish appetizer. I was hesitant to try the jellyfish but I actually liked it. Kimchi was on the table the whole time. We were served a hamburger type steak then another salad in
an edible rice paper bowl. We had a hot soup that is typically eaten on New Year’s Day. It had balls of rice cake in it. I am probably forgetting a course or two but we also had dessert. We were served a plum extract to drink and then had watermelon and Korean cookies which tasted like honey to me. It was delicious! After dinner I went to the bathroom where they had a cool sink. It was a fancy restaurant so they had a small garden. We checked that out and on the way saw a 1st birthday party. It was neat because they were all dressed in traditional Korean clothing. It was the baby’s 100th day. Apparently the crying should really slow down for a baby after 100 days. So this celebration is more for the parents. There was a cake and they were forcing the baby to try bits of fruit. I took a picture but it is a bit blurry. The Parks still wanted to show me around Seoul so we went to a huge shopping area called,Dongdaemun Market. It would put any mall to shame. There are skyscraper after skyscraper full with departments stores. It was all lit up and super busy. My favorits store had flashing stars and the elevator was lit up to look like a rocket.
The deals were incredible for clothing. If I had brought another suitcase I would have shopped for a new fall wardrobe. They buy at wholesale and you can see the bags and sell it almost directly from the bag. We did stop at a souvenir shop and Michelle bought gifts for me to give to her old teachers at Rashkis. I didn’t want to bore the boys too much so we only went in a few skyscrapers. It was late so they drove me home as they are headed to London, Paris, and Rome for summer vacation.