Sunday

I almost forgot to tell you what we did on Sunday! We went to Seoul! 

Gabriel and I woke up on Sunday morning and ate our breakfast and got going. We let Josh sleep in a bit as it was his day off. I ended up putting Gabriel down for his morning nap early because we wanted to take the 10:30 train and I knew there was a chance that Gabriel wouldn't sleep very well while we were out so I wanted him to get as much as he could before we left! I did end up having to wake Josh up and we both got ready to leave for Seoul. Poor little Gabriel had to be woken up from his nap before we left and get his diaper and clothes changed before we threw him in the backpack and headed out the door.

We were cutting it close when we left the house and hoped that we wouldn't be late catching the train. We had to wait for our taxi as usual and then the driver drove us to the train and told us that we had two minutes to catch the train. We were freaking out a little and when I ran up to the ticket booth I heard the faint sound of the train and the announcer stating that the train was now approaching. I told Josh to run for the train while I finished paying for the ticket. It's kind of a long way to run for the train. They are doing construction at our train station so the place that we have to hop on the train is down a long path way, over some wooden planks serving as floor boards, over three train tracks, and down the long platform. We ended up hopping on the very last train car just before the train pulled away and then we walked from car to car before we found our seats and relaxed (as much as you can with a baby) the rest of the way to Seoul.

When we got to Seoul we had to hop on the subway and made our way to Samseong so we could check out a place called COEX Mall. The subway can be very crowded sometimes, to the point of where you are standing shoulder to shoulder, face to face and it can be very hot, other times it's like this and you actually have a chance to sit down or at least have something to hold on too. If you ever forget which subway ling you are on, all you have to do is look at the floor and see what color the line is that runs through, this is the green line #2! Oh, and if you looks closely you can see what I was talking about when I said Koreans can sleep anywhere, there is a few in this picture!

We had never been to COEX before but we had heard about it from a few different people and we were told it was a good place to shop. Before we went shopping though we had to get a bite to eat so we could feed Gabriel. We stopped at the first food place we saw which happened to be KFC and sat down. They didn't have high chairs so Gabriel got to sit on one of the cushioned seats next to the wall and got his own table, he thought it was pretty fun and was happy as a peach!

We then went into COEX. It was just like any other really big mall. They had a lot of stores with nice clothes but we found most of it to be really expensive. We did find a HUGE bookstore though! We were pretty excited about that! It was bigger then any Barnes and Nobles that I've ever seen! They had a huge foreign children's section where we got Gabriel a few books for his birthday and a rather large foreign adult section too where I was able to get a book for myself! I think I could have spent a couple of hours in there but I forced myself to leave after picking out my book.

We then made our way to Gangnam station where there is an underground shopping center. They had much cheaper clothes there and I was able to get a cute dress and a shirt/dress (Koreans would probably where it as a dress, I wear it as a shirt). Underground shopping is kind of weird because most places don't have a place for you to try stuff on and it's just kind of subway tunnels with people setting up shops on the side. Next time I'll have to take a picture, I forgot this time. But they did sell shoes, clothes, food, purses, earrings, really anything you wanted. 

After we went to Gangnam we were pretty tired and decided to head home. When we got back to the train station we found out that we had to run down to catch that train as well. It wasn't cutting it as close as the first time, I think we had five minutes to catch that train but it was also a lot further to walk then the station in Yongmun! Oh well!

Gabriel never ended up taking a nap that day except the morning one. He found looking around far more interesting... but he did look like this most of the day...

... aimlessly staring off into space because he was tired. I have to say that he did pretty well even without an afternoon nap. He did get crabby after we got home, he found a lot of stuff to cry about. If he dropped his toy, he cried. If he fell over, he cried. If mama said 'no', he cried. It was kind of sad! Usually he does sleep when we go out, even if it's just in the backpack, but for some reason he did not feel the need for it on Sunday. Poor little guy!

Anyway, that was our Sunday! We're hoping that Josh doesn't have to work this weekend but we think he may have to. If he does then that means that I have to go into Seoul by myself with some people at the school and go to Costco by myself since we are in need of a few things... it's not a very fun trip with Gabriel! I did it once before and said I would never do it again... we'll see about that I guess, I hope I don't have to!