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A last one for the road

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 It was a rainy night and morning, so we ditched our plan for walking to a nearby outdoor sight in favor of coffee in “A Twosome Place”, our favorite coffee joint.  Jane ordered the Charlie Brown… … but it went un-drunk, because she found it repulsive. We decided to have one traditional Korean meal before we left for the airport. We were very hungry after a dinner mis-fire the night before. We couldn’t eat the “pizza” we ordered or the chicken either.  We went to bed hungry instead. nope nope We were determined not to repeat our mistakes. Lunch was high atop the Lotte department store eating Korean beef stew. Koreans are very generous at explaining and helping when self-cooking is required. Everyone was wearing the standard-issue bibs, not just us. It was a perfect last meal before our flight. Everything was delicious and light, with a bunch of fresh vegetables. First they cooked the beef and vegetable and served it to us. When we were done, they cooked the noodles in the reduced broth
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Our new favorite K-Pop Idol

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This morning we had a scheduled tour that started at 8 AM, an early start we could manage. Due to ticket restrictions, the tour time had to be moved and we had to be at the bus at 6:20 AM for a 7 hour bus tour. When Jane and I woke up, Joel had already been up and showered. He proposed a crazy idea, that we ditch the tour and go back to bed. Surprised at the proposition, we couldn’t argue with the logic so we all just fell back asleep until about 10 AM.  It was a vacation indulgence.   After that, we worked on packing up our stuff for the airport tomorrow so we don’t have to do that in the morning. All packed, we headed for Gangnam again, this time for a K-Pop dance class (obviously for Jane only).  We booked private dance lessons for Jane at the K-Pop training academy, a huge institution that’s churning out potential K-Pop band members, with both vocal and dance training. The school is literally right behind the giant screen that Sylvia sent us a link to a couple of days ago.   K-Pop
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Gangnam Style and Street Style

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Today is a national holiday in Korea, and the streets were eerily quiet this morning. We stopped for coffee and breakfast to an entirely empty cafe, in an area where typically absolutely everything is constantly busy.  We journeyed on foot the few nearly vertical blocks to the base of Namsan Mountain, to ride the cable car to the top.  Arriving just before opening at 10:00, the wait was grueling. With no air conditioning, a packed line, and what felt like 100% humidity, everyone was sweaty.  We had taken our malaria medicine that morning, which has been making me feel pretty loopy anyway.  Let’s stop and talk about malaria. That may seem paranoid a bit, but (1) we are a fairly risk averse crew and (2) I have been bitten by a tremendous number of mosquitos this trip. The CDC recommends malaria pills for the area around Seoul and close to the DMZ, but the Brits health agency doesn’t. Given the malaria pills were free with our insurance, we did it.  Back on Namsan mountain, the malaria pi
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