Yeouido Island

On Wednesday, we went to Yeouido Island to bike along the Han River.

Thankfully, the weather was warmer, so we were able to enjoy an outside activity. Evan and Jen reveled in their newlywed-ness and rented a double bike.

Cade rode on the back of Eric's bike--even with so much practice on his new bike, we were thankful that he had a ride because he's pretty slow! He was also happy to enjoy the ride!

Kennedy did a pretty good job keeping up, though!

 

There were also water drills going on in the river--lots of police boats, fire boats, and such. Cade was enthralled!

Okay, everyone was entertained by it...

Things had been going really well, so we decided to check out something else on Yeouido. There is a mall not too far from where we were. We had gone to check out IFC Mall just a few weeks ago, though people have been talking about it for months. It is famous for being a very Western mall--not as dark or chaotic as many of the Korean malls--which isn't exactly the type of authentic experience that Evan was looking for.

So, as we hopped on the subway in the direction of the mall, I checked out the map of the area, hopped on my iPhone and found a more authentic shopping experience--Yeongdeungpo Market--just a couple of stops from where we were. I found a blog that provided easy directions to the market and within minutes we had arrived.

It quickly became clear that this was not going to be a tourist excursion--there wasn't a white person to be seen inside this massive covered market. We managed to walk through for quite awhile observing all sorts of interesting things--chicken feet, vegetables, spices, beans, and any cut of pork imaginable. Unfortunately, we eventually ran into authentic Korea. I won't go into the details here, but let me just say that if you are of the Western mind that our four-legged friends are just that--friends--then I would recommend that you don't check out Yeongdeungpo Market.

At that point, we were running low on time, so we weren't able to prove that Korea does have normal shopping experiences--complete with Starbucks--so we were headed back to our neighborhood to have dinner with one of Eric's friends and his fiance. I don't think Evan or Jen had any meat in their dinner that night...