While You Were Sleeping

We are finally here! We arrived in Seoul just before 4am Monday morning the 21st (we are 13 hrs ahead of Kentucky).  Our first flight to Atlanta went very well and allowed me to get used to it just a bit. We took off for Seoul at about 12:30 AM Sunday morning.  Wow, it was a very long and tight trip. The plane was absolutely packed, we had little to no leg room, and it was very hot! We suffered through it, looking at each other once in awhile and saying, "It will all be worth it!" I actually did much better than I expected, we watched many movies to pass the time. After landing in Seoul we waited for our luggage and then jumped on a bus to our hotel. We had no trouble finding the right bus, the airport is not very crowded at 4 am.
We were afraid we wouldn't be able to check in right away, but God is so good to us and he had it all worked out so that our room was ready and we checked in immediately. We were even told by the receptionist that he usually doesn't do this.
We quickly freshened up, made a few Skype/FaceTime calls and took a few hours to rest before our day of touring began. We tried to get directions via Subway to the bus stop, but after 5 min. of trying to explain it to us I said, "Should we just take a taxi?" We took a taxi to the north end of the city across the river from our hotel (our first ever taxi ride).
The taxi dropped us off at the bus stop but our attention was immediately diverted to a palace and a mountain landscape to our north. We decided to just take a short walk to begin our tour. Gyeongbokgung Palace was our first stop. The palace was amazing, it was like a city inside a city, seemingly never ending. We also were able to tour the Korean Folk Art Museum that was inside the palace walls.
We continued to walk through Seoul, it is a beautiful city, and very easy to navigate. We realized after several hours of walking that the bus tour didn't run on Mondays. We decided to continue with our one walking tour and took about a 20 min. walk to Namdaemun Market, an outdoor/indoor bargaining market. After our long day of walking and a little Korean KFC we were ready to head back to the hotel. Like the taxi traveling veterans we are, we flagged a taxi, gestured and handed him our hotel business card and we were on our way!
We are having a great time so far, it's hard to believe we just got here this morning. But as great of time as we are having now I can't wait until tomorrow when we finally get to meet our son! It is almost time!

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Look Mom, they have Ice Cream!

Outdoor Market