Sinsadong and Insadong

Today we went to Insadong in hopes of painting more wooden blocks for family and friends...sadly they were not painting wooden blocks there anymore. There was, however, a fun parade celebrating Chusseok! We enjoyed the joyous atmosphere and clapped along to the music for some time.



After our mini let-down with the wood blocks in Insadong we continued down the 3 line to Sinsadong. We had read about how it was a picturesque, affluent and quiet neighborhood full of cafes, galleries and shops and we wanted to check it out. We were very pleasantly surprised with the ginkgo tree lined streets, the adorable boutiques and the fantastic looking cafes and restaurants. The architecture for each building was different, but we loved the mix of modern concrete and neat lines with the cozy, aged wooden storefronts and brick cafes. Sinsadong is a more affluent area than anything we've seen so far in Seoul so we got our fill of BMWs, Mercedes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and more. They also had these awesome ferris wheel style parking garages where they would park the cars, Nick and I were very amused watching the cars pull into their spots and then be swung up into the air for storage. There were so many coffee shops and restaurants that we'd like to try one day; each had a fantastic feel to it, with delicious smells wafting through the air and charismatic chatter surrounding us.



We decided to enjoy our afternoon with a fancy pizza and a bottle of red wine in one of the gorgeous restaurants - the place we chose was called Marly, and it was a beautiful red themed restaurant with clean lines, lots of mirrors and soft lighting, a warm atmosphere and Burberry scarves (really, I checked the tags!) draped on the backs of all the super comfy chairs. We sat for hours people (and car!) watching and talking. The pizza was super tasty, it was called the "New York" pizza, topped with thick salami, onion, mushrooms and olives. Yum. We had a Chilean Cabernet and had a relaxing Sunday afternoon. It was sunny and warmish so we enjoyed meandering the tree lined streets of Sinsadong.