Back to Seoul where we began...

Saturday - breaky at Paris Baguette again, then on the bus for a couple of hours (traffic is terrible), and back to the Cassaville Motel in Sinchon, Seoul. The hotel is great - right near the Sinchon subway exit, close to Hyundai Department store, lots of shops and fruit markets, etc. We have a two bedroom apartment, with a kitchen and small lounge - everything we need.
After dropping off our bags at 12.00 we headed out for lunch at a local McDonalds (yes, Brendan is happy to report that Big Mac's taste the same wherever in the world we have eaten them). Back to the room to do some washing, then charge up our plastic T-money travel cards at the subway, and we are off to the War Memorial. We visited this when we were here 7 years ago picking up Sam, and really enjoyed it, so thought it would be good for him to see. He was fascinated to climb all over the outdoor exhibits - a huge B52 bomber, a USA war patrol ship, many smaller Korean planes, tanks and armoured vehicles, helicopters, all sorts of military equipment.

Then inside we admired the amazing wooden turtle ships (a very unique Korean designed warship made of wood), and a huge array of all sorts of lifesize war dioramas depicting different battles. Sam was particularly interested in the Korean War ("but mum why did North Korea want to fight with South Korea when they are both Korea?") room. ("mum, does that mean that North Australia might come down and fight us?") My son, the deep thinker. Despite all the questions, he said he wasn't frightened by it all, he just found it interesting.

We looked at all the different countries that joined in to help the Koreans fight - all with the stats on how many Aussies fought (17,000), were killed (300) and were wounded (1700). They had mannikens dressed in all the uniforms of the different countries too, which was interesting. We spent a good couple of hours enjoying the exhibits and beautiful sculpures outside. It is an amazing place, and one certainly worth visiting if you are in Seoul. And even better - it's free!

We met Paul, Andrea & Jin and Deb, Joe, Luke & Trixie here, so then we all walked (about 1km) down past the US military base to the 'foreigners market town' of Itaewon. We were all craving a bit of western food, so booked ourselves a big table of 23 (Mrs Lee & Johnny have gone to stay with relatives for a few days), and we all enjoyed steak, seafood and veges at the Outback Steakhouse. Poor Lily was so relieved to be able to eat something other than rice which she has been living on for two weeks (because of her food allergies), that when she was tucking into a plate of ribs and chips she exclaimed "oh thankyou mumma for buying me this food".

A little bit of shopping in the subway on the way home (yippee - we found lego tshirts), and it was home to hide the easter eggs that we had brought from Australia - ready for tomorrow! Only a week to go before we head home - none of us want to leave this amazing, wonderful place that we have all adopted as our own.