Seoul City Tour

We had our City Tour this morning. It wasn't quite what we were expecting, but it was good and helped us get our bearings. Our tour guide, Kim, kept saying her English wasn't that good, but we thought it was very good. She did say that she wasn't very knowledgeable about history, which was kind of a bummer since she didn't tell us very much about the places we were going and seeing. Kim was very, very sweet and she did her best, but I think Wade and I were both under the impression that this was going to be slightly more of a formal informational tour. Still, it was good to walk around with a local.

Wade and King Sejong

First we went to Deoksu Palace. Kim told us that there were 5 or 6 palaces still within Seoul. The one closest to our hotel, and the biggest of them all I believe, is closed on Tuesdays. Maybe we can stroll around with Sean on Thursday. Anyway, since Kim wasn't confident in her English or History skills, we waited for the English language tour. I enjoyed it, we got a lot of information. Mostly that the Japanese were aggressive, conquer-crazed jerk-offs. Who knew? The palace tour guide was so good with her English that she punctuated her sentences with "like," just like every native speaking American teen. What was kind of bummer was that all these buildings were maybe only 100 years old. I thought they were really old, like 15th century old, but apparently the Korea's building material of choice was wood. And wood burns. A lot. Especially if you are constantly being attacked by asshole Japanese who want dominion over all of Asia. Russians too. So I was disappointed that the buildings were rebuilt replicas, but they were still pretty and we were on the palace grounds. Although this was apparently only a temporary palace, used when the real palace(s) were being renovated (after burning to the ground numerous times?) As we finished the tour, we got to see the changing of the guard, which was colorful. And noisy.

Us outside the entrance gate to Deoksu Palace

Detail of building on Deoksu Palace Grounds

From there we went to Namdaemun Market which was a giant outdoor flea market in twisty turning alleys and small streets. It was busy and colorful and vibrant, but most of the stores seemed to be selling the kind of schlocky knockoffs you could get on any street corner from a vendor in NYC. There were some food carts that I would've approached (one of which was selling cooked pig legs--maybe not that one) out of curiosity but the tour was kind of awkward and weird and I didn't feel like I could really stop for some reason. I don't feel the need to go back there. I'm not much a flea market shopper anyway. Not my scene.

Namdaemung Market

We took a taxi back to Insadong which is right by our hotel and we didn't even know it. Now we're talking. Cute little shops, it reminded me of New Hope. We stopped at Starbucks (quaintly written in hangul, which is interesting since all the others we had seen had the English letters on the sign.) I made a mental note to definitely get back there for some shopping. (I've since seen the area described thusly by National Geographic"This pedestrian-friendly arts and crafts district also is known for traditional food and drink." Like I said. much more my speed.) From there we walked back to the hotel, gave Kim her gift, thanked her and headed in to the AC.

Right now we're still on a quest to get something to make the Internet connection happen in our room. It will be time to head home by the time we figure this out.