Fall Vacation

My school had a week off for a fall vacation in early October due to a couple of national holidays and school holidays falling so close together this time of year.  A whole week off when the weather was perfect... definitely a great time for someone to come visit!  We were so excited and thankful that my friend, Michelle, was able to come and stay with us from October 1st-10th.  I had seven whole days to show her Seoul and we had an awesome time!  We definitely stayed busy and saw about as much of Seoul as one possibly could in a week!  We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace, Cheonggycheon Stream, Seoul Zoo, the Korean Folk Village, Hyundai Department Store (she has officially bought more things from a Korean department store than I have!), North Korea (aka Panmunjom/Joint Security Area), Seoul Tower, Dongdaemun, Namdaemun, Olympic Park, the Korean War Memorial and museum.... that is all I can remember at the moment but obviously it was a very busy week!!  Not to mention I had to show her the Korean culture of coffee shops and noraebongs (karaoke rooms).  We had a great time together and I'm so thankful she was able to come!  The time went by much too fast and yesterday it was back to work for me and home for her, but it definitely added to my long list of lifetime Korean memories!

This weekend I will be spending a majority of my time doing homework since I somewhat neglected it over the past week or so (okay maybe ever since we went to China three weeks ago...) and it's that time in the semester where due dates for the big projects are starting to appear.  Surprisingly the weather has still stayed relatively warm so far into October (hot if you ask Michelle).  It gets quite chilly in the evenings but not as cold as we both seem to remember it being around this time last year.  I remember I had to break down and wear my winter coat before the 1st of November and that's already only a few weeks away.  It is cool enough that the mosquitoes are definitely making their way indoors everywhere! 

I don't have many pictures from our time exploring Seoul since I already have pictures from the places we visited. Here are a couple I did take...

 Night view from the top of Seoul Tower

Standing in North Korea with a South Korean soldier inside the conference room