Oktoberfest @ the Seoul Grand Hilton

As I was perusing one of my Korean foodie blogs Seoul Eats I noticed a post about Oktoberfest in Seoul at the Grand Hilton and jumped on the opportunity to get tickets for this event. It was a surprise to Zak and I managed to actually keep it under wraps for the week prior to the event. I usually spill the beans within 24 hours of planning a surprise, so this was a big step for me! :-P So this event was a one time rate for unlimited German beer and cuisine, a live band from Germany, and a whole lot of fun! We definitely enjoyed ourselves and drank enough Paulaner beer for the year, I love Oktoberfest. It was nothing but a ballroom full of people who like to drink beer and eat pretzels, my kind of people!

Me in the hotel room before we went to Oktoberfest, trying to contain myself of spilling the beans! Oh and thanks for the free bottle of wine Seoul Grand Hilton, I had to drink it before Oktoberfest or else my husband would have been on to me that we are going to a drinking event if I didn't pop it open... ha ha

And now onto Oktoberfest, this right here made every penny worth it:

Tapping of the keg!

This Korean boy in his lederhosen was just too cute, even though he looked forced to wear this by his mother...

Zak about to arm wrestle..

We drink Paulaner beer! I wish you could here me singing this, because I have literally been singing it since Oktoberfest..

Drunk Nikki being silly..

And the people we shared our table with, they pretty much won all the competitions, the lady on the left it one hell of a beer chugger.. and the one on the right dominated in womens arm wrestling.

And a video I have put together from the event, beware there are embarrassing drunk moments that you will probably enjoy.. but hey it was Oktoberfest!

In all this was definitely an awesome time, we cannot wait to go again next year!!! I might just order some lederhosen  ;)

2010 Inaugural Korean Grand Prix!

This past weekend Zak and I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Korean Grand Prix. We had been looking into going before we even got to Korea, Zak is a big fan! For some reason life got in the way and we never got the tickets in advance (you know..hospital visits and stuff...) so by the time we realized the race was right around the corner..literally like a week out.. we checked the ticket prices and they were about 975,000krw (roughly $865) each. There was no way I was going to put out almost 2 grand, but luckily I had seen the USO advertising a trip to the F1 race and to my surprise the tickets including transportation, and seats in the grand stand were only $95 each! What a great deal, and big props to the USO for that!

So the day of the race Zak and I woke up very early to head on post and get to the bus that took us down south to the Korean International Circuit in Yeongnam. This trip was supposed to be 4 hours each way but you add in the traffic of over 170,000 people attending the race it was easily 12 hours round trip... not the ideal situation but hey..$95 dollars people! ;)

This was my first ever visit to a race track of any kind, and I am definitely a fan of Formula 1 racing now! We were rooting for the Brits driving the McLarens, Button and Hamilton. Here are a few photos of us arriving at the race track:

And all the drivers arriving to the pit area:

I was also able to get some footage of the opening ceremony:

The race had a delay due to the rainy weather, and then went on to have about 20 safety laps, and finally the race began! There were a lot of wrecks on this track, which was pretty intense. We had our fingers crossed that our guys would wreck and they didn't! Here is a photo of my man Lewis Hamilton being pushed to his starting block:

Zak enjoying the race:

With a sudden turn of events the Ferrari team ended up winning and Hamilton came in second, which we thought was pretty awesome considering a lot of cars didn't even finish!

Here is a photo of the the awards ceremony and of me representing my roots:

We had an awesome time and can't wait to go again next year!

A crazy trip to the zoo!

Zak, myself, and one of his friends Ben decided to take a trip to the Zoo, and we all agreed that this was by far the BEST Zoo we have ever been to! The zoo was just south of Seoul, and pretty tricky to get to by train (meaning we would have had to take a train to Seoul and then had back south on a subway to get there) so we decided to drive! It is not too difficult to find your way around Korea with a car, you just tend to get stuck in a lot of traffic.. I mean the whole country is the size of Indiana and there are over 48.6 million people living here.. your bound to get stuck somewhere! We managed to get to the zoo in a little over an hour, which wasnt bad at all. Upon entering we quickly realized that this is a HUGE zoo!

 It housed every animal imaginable even the fennec fox whom we concluded is a close relative to Pip... (notice the size comparison in the ears.. LOL)

The primate exhibit was my favorite, these are not your average orangutans and baboons!

 Unlike America, Koreans find it extremely entertaining to feed the animals. And I had to agree that it is pretty funny seeing monkeys catch shrimp fries! Every animal was up and moving around as opposed to be lethargic, and they all gave quite a show! Somehow these monkey's got a hold of a mylar balloon and were playing 'monkey in the middle' with it...

Zak and Ben's favorite exhibit were the Kangaroo's. We were able to go inside the pen and feed them and pet them!! Here is Zak while we were waiting for the Kangaroo pen to open up, can you sense his excitement? LOL

Ben had a goal to hug a Kangaroo, and im pretty sure he succeeded. Although it was not photographed we witnessed him hugging not one but two kangaroos! Here is one of him feeding a 'roo!

And me:

After walking around the Zoo and eating waffles filled with jam we stumbled up the bear show.. apparently Korean's are all about training bears to do tricks!

And for the grand finale: A crazy monkey with a mohawk in the nursery:

Thanks for reading!