Seoul New, Seoul Old

What a good weekend! Friday night M and I just walked around the neighborhood and had a beer at the Family Mart. It is so nice to be able to get a cheap beer and sit outside and watch people go by. Thank goodness for Family Marts with tables! The next day was an almost frantic rush to find co-teachers and principals gifts--I got so into it that I forgot to actually get anyone anything. After depositing the gifts at homebase, we took the metro across Seoul to the Gyeonbukgung Palace-a palace originially built in the 14th Century, but destroyed over and over again. Most of what we saw yesturday was either from the 19th or 20th centuries. It was a weird sight, high rises butted up against the old Palace replica.

It was very hot yesterday and water was in short supply. I admidt, I was kind of cranky. However, I still had fun and was able to enjoy the arctitexture. For some reason, tourists could only look inside the throne room, nothing else. That was quite disapointing. The main feature were the grounds though--wonderful Koi ponds. Also attachted to the palace is a Folk Art Museum, which we ducked in for some cool air. This museum was pretty cool as it showed us how to make kimchi, soju, hemp clothing (what a process), salt, and much, much more! I have decided that the palace would be best during the fall when all the trees change colors.

One of the ponds

We kept wandering around the palace and eventually wound up going through a guarded doorway, only to discover we were standing in front of the drive way to the Blue House, or South Korea's version of the White House. We didn't even realize it was there (even though the subway exit did mention something about government buildings). Of course we took pictures.

After going to the Palace (and apparently missing some friends who were there at the same time as me),  we went to Itaewon to have dinner. We stumbled around the foreign area for a bit before finaly deciding that hamburgers were much needed. We ate at Kraze Burgers, a fun, trendy burger joint. My hamburger had cheese, sweet pickles, jalapenos, hot sauce, and onions on it--so good! Matt's was quite similar. Then of course we had to order the "Idaho fries," which came with horseraddish. I don't think some thing so simple has ever tasted so good!

And today I ate pizza. I tried to be good and not mix all these foods, but considering I get corn in every meal any way, whats the harm of a tiny bit of tomato sauce too. To my surprise, there was corn on my pizza--yeah not a fan of corn on pizza, makes it way too sweet. But Korean pizza is good, thin chewy crust and a tiny amount of pizza sauce and the rest toppings! Yummmm!

Now my apartment is quite and empty and I don't want to go back to work tomorrow lol.