Tourist in My Own Country #1 Bookchon

Seoul, Korea

This will be yet another series I start on my blog hahahahahah :) I'll do whatever I want. leave me alone. 

Last summer, I got the chance to visit Korea for the first time in 14 (FOURTEEN) years!!!!!! Green card situation is tough for Koreans here in the states with no connections, and it's expensive af to go to Korea. My parents had gone the year before, and I can't imagine what it must've felt like for them. For me, I came over to the US when I was just 5 years old, so I don't remember much. But for my parents, they lived their entire lives there.

Anyways, I saved up money by part-timing my entire summer just before college (Sadly, no senior trip :'((( ). I also part-timed all the way through my first year of college. I was super super excited to go! Everyone who came back from visiting Korea would always RAVE about it. My cousins family had also gone the year before I went, so I was really feeling a little left out. My entire extended family in the US had traveled somewhere while I was stuck at home after my senior year of highschool :-(

Just before this trip was really when I had the thought of making this blog too. I thought: damn, I'll get a really good series of posts from this trip. However, The beginnings of my trip have sparse photos because I wasn't in the habit of taking pictures of everything. I wish I had. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the street my grandma and aunt lived in. I didn't get a chance to capture the realness of it all. Most of my excuse was that I didn't have a fancy camera. But, I'll be getting one soon, and until I do, I will be posting my Korea series :)))

I spent around two months there, so each post will be dedicated to an area of Korea/ Seoul or activities we did.

Long intro, but anyways. After a fourteen hour flight, my grandma and aunt treated my sister and I to 갈비탕 (beef short rib soup (?)).

My grandma isn't in great health in her leg area, so this place was super duper close to her house. Nonetheless, REALLY GOOD. I still dream about this soup till this day. :') It was really the cure to the 12 hour time difference. AND it was raining that day, so it was perfect. 

The next day,  we went to Bookchon. This is near Gyungbok Goong. It's a small village-type area where you can take part in traditional crafts activities or just go for a walk and enjoy the scenery. We went on a hot day, so before starting our walk, we decided to go for some 냉면 (cold noodles) at a place right before the corner of the village.

I'm going to be saying this in every post, but almost all of the food I had in Korea was REALLY GOOD. :'))))

Here are some pictures from the walk we took:

Traditional old houses

Most of these places, people actually lived there, so they ask you to be quiet while traveling.

Some cute wall art :)

stairs af in Korea

Panorama of one of the insides. You could make crafts here.

cute af flowers.

tree with an IV, how cute omg. 

This first day out was a really good teaser for what we were about to experience: a lot of heat, a lot of walking, but also good food, good sights, and good company.

Stay in tune for more!!!! I'm super excited to reminisce!

Thanks for reading,

Becca.