Celebrating our 4th Anniversary in Seoul

N Seoul Tower

View from N Seoul Tower
National Museum of Korea

Gyeongbokgung Palace
War Memorial of Korea

Even though our anniversary isn't until November 6th, because we won't get to be together we celebrated this weekend. It's hard to believe we've already been married 4 years. Time really has flown by and I am so lucky and blessed to have Ben in my life as my best friend and husband. I am happy that we got to spend this weekend together.

We met up in Seoul coming from our separate places. Of course, Ben's trip was a lot shorter than mine, but I got there eventually. I do appreciate the express buses and I even got to ride the subway that first night.

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is the world's 2nd largest metropolitan area behind only Tokyo. It really is a big city. Saturday we ventured out and visited the National Museum of Korea. It was your typical museum and had a lot to offer both in Korean history and the history of other Asian countries. If you like Buddha, you'll like that museum. We then jumped on the Seoul City Tour bus which takes you around to a lot of different places in Seoul. We next visited Changgyeonggung Palace. As with many buildings throughout Korea, it was built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and built again. The name it has now was actually given by the Japanese when they occupied Korea. After that we went to "the palace to see in Seoul" which is Gyeongbokgung, the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty. We had fun wondering around and looking at what used to be the place for the King and Queen of the Joseon Dynasty. We ended the day with dinner at the Grill in the N Seoul Tower. We were given 2 hours for dinner and were served a 6 course Western style meal. The restaurant revolves, so as you ate your dinner you saw all of Seoul. We tried our best to take pictures, but it was sometimes hard with the lighting. It was very romantic and a great place to celebrate our anniversary. Seoul was so beautiful at night.

Today, Sunday, we didn't have a whole lot of time, so we spent the morning and early afternoon at the War Memorial of Korea. Wow, what a cool place. We spent longer than we had intended there, but there was so much to see and some really great Korean war videos. It was 3 floors and was jam packed of all kinds of things. With our country being so young, I sometimes forget how old a lot of other countries are. Korea has a long history of being at war with itself, China, Japan, and the Mongols. It was neat seeing all of that. I especially liked the Korean War exhibits. I like learning more about how the country got to be where it is now, and the Korean war is definitely one of those events that is still fresh in the minds of the Korean people. I of course can't speak for the Koreans, but to see that the U.S. put more than a million of our people over here in Korea to fight for their freedom (along with other UN troops) with over 35,000 American dying, it just makes me proud that we can help. No mater what the political reasons, the soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors that fight as a part of the US military make sacrifices , and their families make sacrifices, not just for the U.S., but for others as well. The cab driver that took me to the express bus station today, though his English was broken, he was telling me how the younger Koreans don't appreciate the Americans like they should. I think he was telling me in his own way that he appreciated our help and that made me smile. That's of course, not why we do it, but it was nice to hear him be thankful.

Next weekend is a long weekend and Ben and I are going to be adventurous again and are going to hike for 3 days at Jirisan National Park. It should be really beautiful and quite an adventure.