We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant that served Chinese, Vietnamese, thai and Korean food.  We enjoyed the time talking with our good friends who are becoming like family.  We are working on plans for geetting together in the future. It is wonderful to have such great friends.

Mrs. Baik brought a cake for Alicia’s birthday complete with candles.   Saeyun and Seijin gave Alicia a cook book and a book on Seoul.  Mrs. Baik also gave Alicia a beautiful scaf. It was a very nice birthday celebration.

Keeping with our tradition this year we took in another of Seoul’s theatrical performances. Again no english is required to understand this show. I think this makes 6 shows in all.  This one was one of the weaker shows.  Unfortunately the humor was a little off color.  This show featured a lot of nontraditional uses of traditional Korean instruments.  The musicians were excellant.  and once again the drums were incredible as well as the Korean cymbols which are more like drums than cymbols.   This show doesn’t compare with Nanta or Jump but it was still interesting as the story line blended the buddahist story of creation with a romance.  A bit confusing in a sense but still it generally worked.  The play is housed at the 63 building, which is the tallest building in Seoul.  There is an acquarium in the building, and observatory, a museum and a restaurant called “Top of the Clouds.”  I don’t really reccommend the restaurant.  It is expensive and we at their last year but did not feel the food was that good and the price was high.

Sunday June 7th 2009.   Just down from the Hyatt is a small restaurant called J&Js.  Typicall of the area right around the Hyatt the prices are high, but the service was excellantt and the food quallity was outstanding.  Alicia and Rick had steak, Jared is eating fish almost all of the time so he had Salmon, I had Sea Bass. It was an excellant meal.  Seoul has an almost limitless number of good places to eat.

WE had a great time having lunch with the Baiks after Church.  After that General Baik took us over to the national cemetary.  Saturday was Memorial Day.  One thing that I noticed was that every grave had flowers on it.  Many families were actually having picnics at the grave cites of their lost relatives.  Over one million Korean soldiers died in the Korean war.  The national cemetary is the Korean version of Arlington cemetary. It is beautiful but somber place to visit.  It is impressive to see the dedication tha the Korean people have to this portion of their national heritage.

Before church on Sunday members of the church put on a sort of church bizarre.  They had a lot of food for sale.  We sampled  a traditional korean dumpling in hot sauce. Rick really liked this dish. They also had shiskabobs, and a rice dish that was in sausage casings.  All of the profits from the event went to thier missions activities

Sunday June 7th, 2009.  We went to church with the Baiks. The picture is the front of the church. It is a large church and that is international in scope.  The church also has congregations in major United States cities.  The service was very lively and the worship music was excellant.

Jared and I went to the Seoul Aquarium while Rick and Alicia shopped at the CoEx mall. I really enjoy aquariums and so far have been at the Busan South Korea, Seoul South Korea, Chicago, Indianapolis, Gatlinburg, Atlanta, San Diego, Baltimore and Orange County acquariums.  Seoul’s aquarium is very nice in that it has a wide variety of fish in a very user friendly environment.  I would heartily reccommend it if one needs an activity for an hour or two.

We went to the CoEx mall in Seoul.  This is the largest mall I have ever seen.  From what I can tell it would make Mall of America look kind of small.  It is an underground mall.  It goes on forever.  We did not even come close to seeing even a small portion of the mall.  It was filled with a wide variety shops and a huge number of restaurants of all types.  It is a much more western version of shopping.  Nothing like the street markets of Itaewon and Nomdaemun. 

Here we are outside the church before the Sunday services with the Baiks’.  We very much enjoyed the service and having the opportunity to be with our good friends.

We had dinner with Seijin and Saeyun at Cafe Nolita near Ewha Womens University.  Great meal, garlic pasta, a seafood pasta dish, chicken served in a bread bowl, cheese pizza and a crispy fried beef dish.  It was wonderful to spend time talking to our friends and enjoying good food.

This is a street corner just outside of Ewha University.   It is an area a clothing shops and restaurants that cater to the college students in the area. It is a very lively area and it was a lot of fun to walk around the area and see the college students.

Took this picture outside of Ewha University, Seijin and Saeyun’s Alma Mata. This is a beautiful campus. I blends the old with the new. The buildings remnd me of the Ivy League colleges.

Saeyun and Sejin took us to visit the college that they graduated from.   It was a beautiful campus.  Sejin is encouraging us to let Rick come back to take a short term intensive Korean language program.  Rick was pretty excited about this opportunity when he found out that he could take the class at an all women’s university!!!  The campus was beautiful  and it is apparently one of the most respected universities in Seoul.  It is a Christian college. It was started by missionaries.

This is the chapel at Ewha Women’s University.  Chapel attendance is mandatory once per week.