Hawaiian flights weren't cheap and any of the hotels I wanted to stay at were over $300 a night. So I started looking on where else we could go for a week's vacation using our airline miles with Alaska Airlines. That's when I saw that we could fly direct Seattle to Seoul for only 30,000 miles each on a partner, Korean Airlines. "So how do you feel about spending our vacation in Korea?", I asked my hubby. To my surprise, he was very enthusiastic about it. So I booked it after I also found a 4 star hotel for about $125 per night!
Seattle to Seoul on Korean Airlines is a direct flight about 11 hours. It's really not too bad, honestly! You do seem to "lose" a day crossing the International date line, but don't worry, you get it back when you come home when you have an almost "double day"
I researched online and knew that we really only had enough time to see all the great sites of Seoul and take a deluxe day long trip to the DMZ (demilitarized zone) between South Korea and North Korea, but more on that later in a future post! We when we go back, we definitely want to get to the port town of Bushan.
First, let's talk about all the incredible things you can eat in Korea! It's a foodie's paradise!!! We had booked a night's food walking tour for our first night. Since Korea is such a different culture, we will feeling a bit worried about getting around, and knowing what to eat, so figured a food walking tour was the perfect thing to break us in gently. We visited about 4 different places and experienced a bunch of great food, from a seafood noodle shop, Korean BBQ ans ending with the prerequisite fried chicken and beer! Koreans love to eat and drink, and share with others, so we felt very welcome and safe everywhere we went. We were so full, we had to roll on back to the hotel...
Our first night in Seoul was very rainy, which made for a fun experience and some beautiful photos glistening in the rain!
A couple days later, we had booked a half day cooking school and market experience. My hubby and I ended up being the only people in the class and we had such a fun time making an incredible lunch! Below is the meal that we ate and enjoyed. Believe me, we didn't need any dinner that night!
A couple shots of the local marketplace which was huge. We were the only non-Koreans there. There were some things that I could identify... but not very many.
Our hotel was right near the Myeongdong district which offers a night market with amazing selection of street food. Most nights we wandered the market, trying so many delicious things. Most choices were under the equivalent of $5. 
The happiest ice cream cone eater... it was about 15 inches high.
Here's the view at sunset!
Here we are "massaging" some kimchi that we made out of napa cabbage. Usually, kimchi is fermented and that takes some time, but this was what our instructor called a "summer kimchi salad", it was delicious.
Here we are showing our creations with our instructor. We all sat together (including our assistant cook and our photographer) and enjoyed a fun lunch together. It was such a great way to interact with real Koreans. I highly recommend cooking classes when you travel.
Not sure what these are, but it appeared to be a pastry stuffed with a block of ice cream.
Seafood galore!
Our hotel was within view of Seoul Tower, such a beautiful view from our window in our room.
It's a great place to go in the late afternoon to see the views and have a meal. We made sure to have a beer at the top, because, why not? Later on, we realized that my hubby had forgotten his Patagonia backup at Seoul Tower, and it was filled with camera equipment even his "Go-Pro". We had the hotel call the lost and found for us, and it had been turned in with everything intact! We had to march back up the hill and wait for the tram to the top again, but we were relieved to get it back.
And after sundown, they light up the tower in great colors for a light show.
There are so many beautiful palaces and shrines in Seoul, plus the whole DMZ experience was so great, and there so much more to say. LINK to part 2 is here.