Wednesday again started with a wonderful buffet breakfast at the Somerset complete with made to order omelets! Because it is so ridiculously cold outside (negative numbers with the wind chill factor) we decided to find some fun indoors. We traveled to the COEX mall for the day (thanks Eden's mommy). The mall was HUGE! There had to be hundreds of stores and restaurants, a movie theater, aquarium, and multilevel department store. It was surprisingly crowded considering it was the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, and we were amazed at how many people were working in this mall! In the department store for example, each booth, counter, or table had several people working it, and there was someone situated at each opening of every isle... literally thousands of employees in the department store, it was crazy! They were all so helpful and friendly, and all dressed to the nines...suites etc. Quite a change from the average Michigan department store where you have to work to find someone to help you out, and they often blend in with the shoppers in their day to day clothes. We have been so impressed with this city! We purchased some books and Disney DVDs that play in both Korean and English for Christopher. We walked until our feet were ready to fall off, then made our way back to the hotel for a nice afternoon nap. We had been awake since 3:30am so we pretty much collapsed for a couple hours. Once we were a little better rested we decided to go to a traditional Korean musical play called "Miso" at the Chongdong Theater. It was fantastic!!! I would highly recommend it to anyone planning to travel in the coming weeks or months!! It plays Mon-Sat every evening at 8pm. We arrived at about 7:15 to get tickets. We paid about $30 each for the "mid level" seats, but the theater only held about 100 people, so the seats were fantastic! It was wonderful! The traditional costumes were so beautiful, and the dance scenes were separated by traditional music and a very interesting and spirited drum line!
At the end of the show the drum line guys were showing off their balancing skills with some sort of spinning clay plate. They were throwing it and had the audience divided cheering for who they thought did a better trick. Then one of them came up into the audience and pulled me out of my seat and on to the stage!!!! I was so embarrassed but had so much fun at the same time! He transfered the spinning plate to me and then had me toss it to the other man. I had to balance it on a pipe that he kept moving away just as I was getting it balanced to make the audience laugh. I couldn't help but laugh too! At the end of the segment they had me do a little dance move with them that they taught me at the back of the stage while another unsuspecting tourist had to put the spinning plate between his legs at the front of the stage. At the end I bowed with them and he presented me the skinny pipe as a souvenir. I had a blast! What a memory! It was just too bad that we didn't get a picture since there was no photography allowed in the theater. I hope I don't have any trouble getting the pipe on the plane!
We were pretty tired at the end of the show, so we opted for a snack food dinner that we bought at the shop in the hotel lobby and microwaved in our room. We tried lots of unknown Korean snacks and everything was great! Hopefully we will be able to locate a Korean restaurant once we get home. Well, we are leaving in just a few minutes to go get our son. Next time you hear from me we'll be a family of three!!
I was just about to head to bed when your post popped up in my reader. I'm so glad I read it. It sounds like you're having a fabulous time. That show sounds amazing! And love that you got to participate.
ReplyDeleteCannot WAIT for your next post!!!