A Tale of Two Tours

Annyeonghaseyo! We had an interesting day today. It started out fabulous -- I got to skype with Lydia and Trixie!! It was so great to talk with them and especially to see their faces -- I miss them. After that we tried to go to Kyobo Bookstore, but it was closed for remodeling.

We noticed music and banners at Deoksugung Palace, so we headed that way. We saw a re-enactment of the changing of the guards during the Chosun Dynasty. It was beautiful and colorful. I've tried to include a short video of this.

Next we headed to the Seoul City Bus Tour. You buy a ticket and then the bus goes to 24 different hot spots of Seoul. You can get on and off at any stop you want and then go back and catch the bus when you're ready. It seemed like a great way to be able to see a lot of the high points of Seoul without having to walk the entire city and figure out where everything was. We managed to find the first stop and were ready for a relaxing day of riding the bus from place to place and walking around at the stops of our choice. At Naemdemun we got off the bus to explore the market there. It was wonderful! It was sunny and warm, lots of people were out, and I found several things that I needed to buy. Since it was lunch time we stopped at a woman's cart and had lunch. I had some yummy chicken kebabs and Brent had tteokbokki, which is small fingers of rice paste cooked in a spicy sauce. He'd been wanting to try it ever since we got to Seoul. He liked it, but said he wouldn't get it again. It was very chewy and thick.

After Naemdemun we headed back to the City Tour bus stop, but alas we couldn't find the street or buildings we needed. After a lot of walking all around we decided to walk to the next bus stop at Seoul Station. It was a pretty day and it wasn't a terribly long walk. Well, we walked all over the place and tried several different streets on both sides of the street and we couldn't find the bus stop. We eventually made our way to the Seoul Station Mall and walked up and down that road twice and couldn't find the bus stop (the map they gave us was no help). Finally we decided to ride the subway to the next stop. One hour later we had finally managed to get to the next stop. After a 15 or 20 min. wait the bus finally came. Whew!!

Back on the bus we decided to skip the Dongdaemun market and save it for another day, so we next went to Itaewon. We were not impressed with this American base, but I was able to find the scroll guy to write Henry's name in Hangul. It's very cool! We did find our way back to the bus stop and were starting to feel like the bus idea wasn't such a hugew fiasco after all. Next stop for us was NSeoul Tower. We went and on our way back it started to rain. I was fine because my jacket had a hood. Poor Brent didn't have a hood and his jacked wasn't waterproof. It wouldn't have been too bad if the bus had come promptly. Unfortunately we had quite a wait. The bus FINALLY came and we got on. At this point it was past 7 in the evening, so we got off at Insadong, which is close to our hotel. The rain had stopped and lots of people were out in Insadong. We saw some guys making kkultarae (Dragon's Beard) and stopped to watch their little song and show. It was really neat. They would take a little glob of honey (frozen or cold I think) and roll it in cornstarch. Then they would poke a hole in it to make it look like a donut and roll it in more cornstartch. Then they would pull the honey donut apart and twist it, then do more pulling and twisting. All the while they kept dipping and rolling this in cornstarch. After several rounds of this the honey and turned into long very, very thin strands that look like a beard (thus the name Dragon's Beard). They took these strands and wrapped them around a spoonful of 7 different types of chopped nuts. They ended up looking like little white squares. They made me think of a Frosted Mini Wheat. Evidently they are a Korean tradition. We put them in the freezer like the man said to do and they really are good -- very different.

That was our day. A day filled with tours we meant to take and tours we didn't mean to take. I loved all the exploring we did and can't wait for tomorrow to see Henry!!!! Brent has never met Henry and I'm very curious to see Henry's reaction to him.

The video of Deoksugung Palace doesn't seem to be uploading, so I'll try again later.