Day 7 of 36
Seoul, Korea
Woke up at 4 am again and watched the full moon setting in the distance. Glorious sight.
Went back to sleep to try to overcome jet lag and got up about 6:30 - did email, showered, dressed, and went for a big breakfast at the hotel. Today is "palace and garden day". Tomorrow will be "market day". Lots to see.
Today was spent exploring the palaces and gardens in Downtown Seoul - a large area but very walkable and safe. I headed down the hill from the hotel to Seoul Station - a large modern train station that I can see from my room at the Millennium Seoul Hilton Hotel. Walked to the Sungnyemun (South Gate) but it is being completely restored. Not much to see.
Note to Self: Don't ever try to drive in South Korea - they go when it is red, hard to figure out how it works!
Ended up mid morning at Deoksugung Palace. The National Museum of Modern Art is here. Beautiful architecture in the complex. Beautiful gardens and lot of pine trees (the national tree).
Seoul Plaza is out in front of Deoksugung and the very modern Seoul City Hall.
Walked further along to a huge plaza with fountains, streams and flowers. Beautiful.
Further down was Gyeongbokgung Palace. Took an English tour here and that was informative. Took lots of pictures of the kings throne, living quarters, etc. Then went to the National Folklore Museum - interesting architecture but didn't go in.
Walked through the downtown to the largest of the palaces, Changdeokgung Palace. It was huge. You had to go with a tour but the English tour was over an hour away so I went with a large Korean group and listened to "Miss Saigon" (the musical) while she was talking. I imagine the commentary was similar to what I had heard at Gyeongbokgung Palace. The Secret Garden area was beautiful. Very peaceful.
Left the palace and went back to Insadonggil Street. I had seen a "Korean sundae" yesterday so I ordered one. Wish I hadn't. It was huge. Interesting how it was assembled. Milk in the bottom of the dish, then a large (and I mean large) scoop of shaved ice. Followed by an even larger scoop of a jelly topping (small red berries - don't know what they were. Followed by several various kinds of cookies around the edge and some brown powder (I thought is was brown sugar but it didn't taste like that). Then finally a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It was interesting but looked better than it tasted. Almost everyone in this small shop was indulging in the same thing so I had lots of company. I didn't eat most of the shaved ice. Oh well - a new experience.
Walked to the stream that flows through the middle of downtown - has walkways, fountains, benches, stepping stones. Really cool and lots of people were walking here or sitting under the bridges and staying cool. Walked to Dondaemun Market . They had all kinds of markets here. Small shops that mostly specialized in a certain product. The most unusual shop was one that had only rubber bands - large containers of every kind of rubber band that you could possibly imagine.
Headed back to the hotel to rest my feet. Boy - the dogs are barking! A hot shower and getting off my feet for a while helped.
Had Kalbi beef for dinner with a Korean soup made with greens. Excellent.
Updated my blog and read for a while and went to bed around 10. Hope to get up early tomorrow and get packed so I can see the final sights before leaving mid afternoon.
Really enjoying my visit to Korea.
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