Wolmido Adventure!

One weekend in October, we took the subway from our house (the second to last stop on this line) all the way to the other end of the line - about a 2.5 hour ride.  At the end of the line is Incheon - a city to the west of Seoul which a group of islands, and houses the main international airport and many international businesses. Right when you get off the subway, you are at the opening of the only Chinatown in Korea. After experiencing NYC and San Francisco's China town, this one is comparatively small, but still pretty cool, because hey, we were actually in Asia!

The main street at the entrance of China Town.

 We wandered around a bit and got a bite to eat before we asked directions (yea for Chinese speakers!) to our hotel. Our hotel was thankfully pretty close. While our room was small, I was really pleased with our awesome view of the water front.

It may look industrial, but when you actually had the panoramic view from our corner room, it was beautiful!

After we settled into our hotel a bit, we headed out for Wolmido. ("Wolmi" means "half moon" as it is shaped like the tail of a half moon, and "do" means "island.") This was the primary reason for going down. After a five minute taxi ride from our hotel in Incheon to the island (which is connected by a 1 km bridge), we got off at the amusement park area. It reminded me a bit of Coney Island, and since it was a weekday (Chris was off for Columbus Day) it wasn't busy at all. Claire was excited to ride a ride.

Hamming it up on the ride of her choice.

She was the only one on the ride for quite a while (7-8 minutes?)  When the man stopped the ride, we thought it was over (since it was already so long), but the man operating it just stopped the ride to let a couple of other kids on and told Claire she could keep riding. Claire was kind of bored of it by then, but she wasn't going to pass up a free ride either, so she got back on. She ended up riding the ride for about 15 minutes.

Thinking about the purpose of life on this somewhat relaxing ride. :)

Aren't these dog benches funny?

After the ride, we were excited to see what else there was to see. We wandered to the boardwalk on the waterfront which was lined with restaurants and shops.

Views from the boardwalk.

Claire made some friends (as always) and they gave her a Korean rice cake (in her left hand.) She loved running and playing on the boardwalk.

Me posing with the cute hot dog.

We enjoyed the beautiful view of the water while we walked along the boardwalk. One of the main things we had hoped to do on this trip, besides the amusement rides for Claire, was to check out an observation deck we had heard about on top of Wolmi Mountain. After walking down the boardwalk a bit, we found it. (It wasn't hard to find. The island is not that big.) We found a map at the bottom of the small mountain where there was also a beautiful park. It was only about a 1000 meter walk, but it started with a ton of stairs, so we found a safe place for the stroller, and headed up the mountain! (Ok, I really just put the stroller in the bushes. It's Korea, and crime rates are really low. I figured it would be safe, and just used a little extra caution by disguising it a bit. Ha!)

Soon before we took her out to hike up the mountain.

Only about the first 100 meters were stairs, and the rest of the hike was a nice paved road up. We had to rest a few times for Claire since she is three and didn't have a nap that day, but the climb really wasn't too bad, even when carrying a baby and a diaper bag. It was actually quite beautiful as the path was lined with trees and we could peek out now and then to see beautiful views of the water. Soon, we made it to the top!

We took the elevator up to the top of the observation deck and enjoyed the amazing views. This adventure reminded me of a mini Seoul Tower adventure. We climbed a mountain (this time on purpose) and had great views from a tower, just on a smaller scale. While Seoul Tower views amaze you with the size of the city, and the crazy amount of huge buildings, Wolmi Mountain views were beautiful with sun setting over the water front. Also, since Incheon is the second largest port in Korea, there were lots of ships and industries to see. Ok, enough talk, here are some of my favorite pictures from on top of the deck.

Some ports and ships

I love that cool bridge

The international business section of Incheon

The ferris wheel and the sun setting over the water is so picturesque. 

More mountains!!

The sky getting more colorful.

The one picture I took up there. Not bad for a cell phone picture, huh?

We wanted to stay for the full sun set, but we still had to walk down the mountain, and we didn't want to have to do that in the dark. Also, we were hungry for dinner, so we headed down the mountain. We kept an eye on the sun though, and got some great shots on the way down. (Well, Chris got great shots.)

When we got to the bottom of the mountain, the sun was just starting to touch the horizon. Claire and I watched as it disappeared behind the distant mountain. It was absolutely beautiful. We hadn't seen a sun set over a body of water since we lived in California, and I loved it. It was like watching God's daily work of art. After the sun was down, it still left an orangish hue for a little bit as the day calmly came to an end.

We thought it would be fun to ride the ferris wheel all together. It was the slowest moving ferris wheel ever as it never stops to let people on and off. You just get on and off while it is creeping along. We enjoyed the beautiful views though. :) Claire wanted to ride one more ride, so she picked a boat ride which was right by the ferris wheel.

She loved it! And just for being so cute (and maybe American), the man running the rides there guided her over to a nearby train ride for a free ride! He told me to get on with Maddie too, so we all rode the ride together. For a kiddy ride, it was actually pretty fun! (Probably mostly because I was riding with my kiddies.)

We finally headed back to the hotel, got some dinner, and went to bed. We had such a fun adventure together as a family, and besides the whining we had to deal with at the end of the day by two kids who were overtired, the day couldn't have been more perfect.





The next day, after we checked out of the hotel, we wandered back to China Town, enjoyed the sites and shops, and ended up buying the girls matching Chinese dresses (for less than $10 each!) We also got some little toy drums for their Christmas stockings, and then headed home. We stopped about a half an hour in because Claire needed to use the bathroom. While there, I happened to see a sign for Outback, so we decided to have lunch there. Yummy! (For some reason, at the end of the meal, they gave us a little dish of chocolate sauce with our pumpernickel bread. It was sort of strange, but we decided it was pretty tasty to dip the bread in it.)

When we got home, I was anxious to have the girls try on their Chinese dresses, so they modeled them for us.

Claire thought she needed a Chinese fan to go with the dress. What a good idea!

Claire trying hard to keep Maddie still for the picture.

Claire also thought she looked like Mulan, so thought she needed an umbrella like her. So cute.