Our first real leg of the scavenger hunt began in Seoul! After a 13 hour overnight flight, a 5am arrival and a short two hours to get cleaned up, we were off. Or, so we thought. It turns out getting a book with 40ish challenges and novice knowledge of a city of 9.7 million is overwhelming. We froze..at least for a bit until finally getting the in a groove.

A big laugh for us was the exercise activity on the plane boefore landing! The entire plane did seat stretching together.

Our hotel was phenomenal, but time was limited so we took advantage one of the most beautiful hotel pool and hot tubs for just a few minutes at 6am! The bathing caps were provided!

Pool and spa

One other fancy item at the hotel was the toilet. We didn’t want to get off the heated seat. . . and there’s a dryer!!!!

Here our a few of our other highlights:

• We were tasked with approaching a few Koreans about their most famous citizens, the most unique place to visit, and the weather. We had to put our fears aside and jump in!
• We hiked to the presidential palace called the Blue House, which was not as fancy as Windsor Castle but worth the trip. The hike up the mountain behind it was the prize.
• We hit a S’more cafe, where Donna tried a Brown Cheese Latte which sounds gross but loved it!

• We wandered into a local market and tried pumpkin porridge, scallion pancakes and delicious apple mango bites. We could not stomach the live octopus that wiggled on the salad. Next Time!
• Finally we went (via a lot of walking and then finally gave up and got the taxi) to the Cable Car leading up to the Seoul Tower. Surprisingly, the view was nice but it was the fences with Love Locks (plagiarised from the bridge in France) and the decorations that were most interesting. When no lock could be found then people would use their cell phone cases???? I think that it would be disappointing that my beloved had used his cell phone case, but. . .

The bullet train was up next, and it did not meet our expectations for speed, but we have now at least been on one. The downside of the three hour trip was halfway through, we realized the fish market we were tasked with visiting was closed every third Tuesday! Uggh. Our only alternative was a very touristy aquarium. But, we made the most of it and bonded with a three finned giant sea turtle!

Korean BBQ for Shannon the vegetarian was up next but Donna ate enough meat for both of us (they only sell orders for 2 people). It was impressive! Our favorite moment was upon arrival, we were trying to ask for a table and the hostess kept asking us a question in Korean. Finally, google translate to the rescue.

Um, no. We were not with Mr. Yamada, but we wish we had said yes!

• Next stop was to the theatre. Korean humor is a little bit different than our own, which we learned through our experience at the Nanta cooking comedy show that was more like STOMP, Blue Man Group and the Three Stooges combined! We both took little cat naps.
• Final Day 2 Scavenge was an unexpected highlight. We went to nori bong in Hongik for a little karaoke (it is a private room complete with table, chairs and karaoke machine). Our first song was Air Supply, followed by Asia and Lady Gaga. We were so good!! (ha ha) The record contracts are coming soon! The sketchy part was trying Soju (actually, really good according to Donna only), which comes in jar that looks like it was homemade. We we worried but no one got sick.

Shannon’s face after the taste test of Soju

We finished our time in Seoul with the 5th tallest building in the world on the 120th floor, which has a glass floor!! We had to run back to our hotel to meet the scavenger cut-off and we arrived sweating and pooped out, but it was worth it.

As we headed to our next destination, we made a friend with Airport Robot. She walked us to our restaurant destination and guided us through “hazardous” obstacles (people walking too close).

We arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan late last night and we are off for our next round of scavenges this morning!