Seoul – Day Three (Part I)
This post has 50 pictures. Yay! (Or boo, if you hate pictures. And me. Especially if you hate me. Why are you even reading this?) Right. So, I had to split this entry to keep the workload steady. The pictures are in this entry. The next one will *cross your fingers* contain some quick video clips. Nothing fancy. Anyway, let’s get to the pictures! (Please click the more link to see the photos and commentary. They’re just a bit much to stick on the front page.)
Whew! You made it! You already get the gist of what went on on Day 3 from the running commentary in the photos, but I will do my best to lay out the day in words here. The two big events of the day were hitting the National Museum of Korea and Deoksugung (another palace). We also hit the Namdaemun area for shopping and giggles. But let’s run through the day quickly in order.
We woke up bright and early, ate breakfast in the hostel – which consisted of peanut butter and strawberry jam toast, steamed rice, korean nori, and a bit of kimchi – and dragged ourselves to Dongmyo station. From there we traveled to our designated meeting place (which became the meeting place for most of the remainder of the trip), Jongno-samga station. It took us a few extra minutes to meet up with Jon this time. Once we did, we headed off for the National Museum of Korea. The only hitch was that we started out by traveling the wrong direction. Goooood.
To compound the problem, we attempted to get off the train and hop on one going in the other direction. This proved to be far too close to a keystone cops or slapstick routine for my comfort. We kept switching between two platforms, both with trains going in the direction we needed to go, connected by two flights of stairs and an overpass-type shopping area. We missed 3 or 4 trains, I think, and wasted a good chunk of time. We were all slightly frustrated, but still able to chuckle at our transportation ineptitude. Unfortunately, it carved out about half of the time which we had set aside for the museum visit. With the hangups so early on in the day, our schedule started to look more and more undoable. We, however, were not to be conquered. We did it anyway, like true troopers.
Did it, but did it FAST. We spent approximately 35 minutes at the museum. It’s a museum that easily would have taken me 4 hours to browse, giving it the attention that I wanted to give. It was kind of like a smash-and-grab operation, only less theft-oriented and more visuals/information/photo oriented. We wound up splitting up to see what we each wanted to see, and met back at the entrance at the appointed time. I remember being completely taken by the building itself more than the exhibits in the place – which were really cool, though not specifically focused on Korea all that much. The vast majority was a sampling from all over Asia. Anyway, I made it through about 3/4 of the stuff I wanted to see. Not bad for a warp speed jog-through. Anyway, we met up and hauled our butts back to the station.
We made it to Deoksugung just in time to see the changing of the guards. Truth be told, we entered, walked in to where we thought the whole thing would happen, and were mistified. We heard music and voices and realized that the whole affair was taking place outside the actual palace. We then had to figure out what to do – we were inside already. We decided to forget about it and walk back out. The ticket price was really cheap, so if needs had been, we would have purchased new ones. Turns out we didn’t need them – people must make the same mistake all the time. We watched the whole thing happen from both sides (outside first, then inside the gates), took photos with the guards, and then started to tour the palace.
When we finished up at Deoksugung, we walked down to Namdaemun, the South Big Gate. We started to walk around it, and I actually continued to walk around it, until I turned around and saw my travel buddies crashed on a bench. Confused, I turned back. They didn’t think we could cross the road in order to get near the gate. I pointed out the crosswalk, the perked right up, and we made it across no problem. Just in time for another changing of the guards. It was weird. We had just seen them and all. Anyway, we saw the gate and took some photos, then started to walk back…except that we once again got slightly turned around. We were leaving Namdaemun, which is in the center of a huge traffic circle, with the roads leading to it poking out like spokes on a bicycle wheel. We took the spoke slightly before the one we should have, and as you can imagine, wound up in the general vicinity, but still a good hike away from where we wanted to be.
Jon had planned to meet up with his buddy (and now my buddy 
) Sheenae. They are stationed in the same area in Kyushu. By the way, I loved hearing about Sheenae’s name, as a person who gets name comments all the time. She was telling us that she says it slightly different, because when pronounced in Japanese, it is basically a homonym for the command “DIE!!” Ha ha ha. That’s awesome. Sorry about that, Sheenae. I can’t help the schadenfreude. You’re really really cool, and I really hope we meet up again. Anyhoo, moving along. We met up with her just fine, and due to the begging of a party member of ours, whose name begins with a W and ends in endy, stopped by another Baskin Robbins. Yum! Nobody complained. We set off for the market named after the Big South Gate (Namdaemun), and explored.
Apres la market, we decided to grab a bite to eat. We had intended to eat some yakiniku, but wound up at an izakaya type place. The food was really really good. The drink, on the other hand… We ordered some soju again, and Sheenae taught us a “getting to know you” game. A very safe drinking game, I might add for Mom or other worriers out there. 
Basically, one person gives a qualification or superlative, and then everyone votes by pointing at the person they guess it might fit. If you think it may be you, you can block by making a batsu (X) shape with your arms. If you block and the majority is not pointing at you, then you must take a shot. If you get pointed at and are not blocking, then you must take a shot. It’s a simple majority rules game. Well, let’s put it this way: I am fairly sure I ripped them off, because I drank far more soju than the others. Sorry guys! If you’d just not point at me so much…American Idol? I’m still baffled by that. Anyhoo – the only other ridiculous story from dinner involved a capsicum. This innocuous looking ringlet of green pepper was in my food, and I am quite fond of bell peppers and the like. Melissa had just put one in her mouth when I did the same, and she started making wild gestures. I looked at her as I chewed, wondering what the fuss was over. Then suddenly, I understood thanks to the white heat roaring to life in my mouth. It was the single hottest pepper I have ever had in my life. Tiny and powerful. It was nuts. We were both sweating and breathing hard for a few minutes. I think we were closer after that. Ha ha ha. Nobody else dared to taste it. Oh well.
We had been eyeing this karaoke joint across the street as we ate, because it was quite the novelty to us. The whole front of the thing was glassed in, meaning that you could watch all the people singing – and hear them on occasion as well. We walked right over and got a room visible from the street. It was awesome – a two story deal with a ladder between the decks, 2 flat screen mirrors, and the full laser/discoball/lights package. We sang our hearts out – and people did stop to watch. Fun stuff. After that we were all plum tuckered out, so we split off towards our hostels and dropped into bed. It was a great day.
