It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

How quickly the time flies in December! Michael and I went to Seoul on December 7th in search of some cultural familiarity. Chuncheon does not decorate for the holidays. This saddens Michael and I because all we have to look at is our tiny Chistmas tree, which kind of resembles Charlie Brown's.

We accidentally slept in Saturday morning, but were fortunate to make it to the train station at 11:17; the train's departure being at 11:20. We rushed to the ticket counter, impatiently waiting behind an older couple purchasing what felt like 20 tickets. We had to wait for them to count out the money and put their tickets away before they finally walked off. I ran to the counter, told the clerk "Cheongnyangni" and fingered 2. He took my money, thrust the tickets in my hand and we flew to the train. We got onto car six and walked across cars to get to ours: car 3. As we walked in to our car, the train started moving.

Cheongnyangni was decorated with trees inside and out. I couldn't help but smile. We looked around for a couple of minutes and then hit the subway. Our first destination was the Wolfhound Pub for some much needed western food. Michael got the burger, I got the veggie burger. Both were served with fries. They had Strongbow!

Who serves beer on ice? The Wolfhound Pub does.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we went over to Dongdaemun market. I was in search of some baking products and heard they could be found here. We arrived to find several tiny shops filled to the brim with flour, chocolate chips, cookie cutters, sprinkles, cute little boxes, you name it. My favorite shops were bread garden (the best supplies, but the most expensive!) and Bake King. I am really excited to try out my new cookie cutters, chocolate and food stampers this weekend!

Finally, we went to the electronics market in I-Park mall. We have been to Yongsan countless times now, but had never checked out this area of the mall. It was filled with salesmen trying to sell us cameras, computers, and TVs. There were also some game stations where I picked up a new Sims game.

While at the mall, we hit up Baskin Robins for some ice cream. The flavor of the month is Santa's Cookie Crunch and it is fantastic. I was overwhelmed with cookie bits and chocolate chunks. Michael got his usual standby: Love Struck Stawberry which has stawberries, cheesecake bits and chocolate chunks. We were in ice cream heaven.

By then we were ready to go. Its nice to go to Seoul even for just a few hours. On December 21st, Chuncheon will be opening a new train line that connect with the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. This means that we will be able to go to Seoul for Subway prices (2,600 Won) and we will be able to get there in just 89 minutes. Shaving an hour off of our total train time will definitely encourage to travel to Seoul more in our last few months here.