it's always the way, right? i managed to not get sick, even while all of my colleagues called out these past few months - not me. multi vitamin, eating right, exercise, H1N1 flu vaccine. yup, did it all. so of course when my body actually has time to relax, in sweep the viruses. i blame jos (hahaha).anyway, wasn't feeling too bad until the beginning of day 3, when it went from minor annoyance of congestion to full on sinus pressure and head wanting to explode. but i'm in korea! so go away, cold, and don't come back. ever.
on day 2 joslyn and ryan headed out together to go to a church meetup and then to ryan's school so jos could observe a class. this left me to explore seoul on my own. what do to? i decided my best bet would be to take that city bus tour, since i could hop on and off as i pleased, and it would give me a nice overview of the city. the subway is super convenient, but when you do all your traveling underground, you miss seeing what's actually above. it took me about an hour to get to the start, and having just missed one tour, i had to wait for another. i walked around the area to bide my time. it was a bit hazy, so the mountains in the distance weren't as clear as they could have been. eventually boarded the bus, which i learned would take 2hrs to complete the entire loop. good deal, considering the ticket was only about $11 and good for 24hrs. i decided to just ride the whole loop, since the main sites i wanted to see joslyn also wanted to see and we'd already planned to go together.
the bus tour took us by everything: the main markets, the USO, the national museum, war memorial, national theatre, seoul tower, and all the palaces, most of which were closed (of course). it was great, until we got stuck in complete bumper to bumper traffic. the stop and go motions, combined with the exhaust smell and excessive heat inside the bus - i really thought i might puke and/or die. awful. staggered back to the apartment, wolfed down an egg sandwich from 7-11 and stripped off as many layers as i could while still maintaining some amount of modesty. recovered, but not soon enough to get back to the war memorial w/joslyn, which was our original plan.
so we decided on seoul tower instead. yes, it's a cheesy tourist trap, but whatever. timing wise, it actually worked out quite nicely. we arrived at dusk; the city lights were just beginning to come on - which was perfect since the hazy day wouldn't have allowed much of a view earlier. got a bit lost trying to find the cable car up (funny how well marked things are underground, but not so much above..) but found it eventually. favorite parts? all the "locks of love" on the fences - where people write messages to their loved ones. i particularly like the sign that warned people not to throw away their keys - reminding us all how fickle love can be (HA! you're telling me).
the bright lighting inside was a bit irritating when trying to take photos, but i did like how they had all the world's major cities on the windows indicating distance away and direction. took a pit stop at "seoul's highest toilet" which was less than impressive, then made our way to the gift shop where i found my seoul key chain. back to the subway to meet up with ryan and his friends at itaewon (read: super touristy) at a fish and chips pub (very korean ha). actually, saw more white people here that night then i did on my entire trip. the food was yummy, company good, but the smoke combined with my already congested and headachy self just did me in.
hello full blown sinus infection.
yeah, definitely woke up this morning feeling worse than usual. but getting outside in the crisp air and getting some hot tea helped clear me up a bit. we had grand plans for today, and i wasn't going to let anything stop me. today was war memorial day - and i'm glad we didn't try to rush through it yesterday because it took us about hours to get through. i'm a big history buff, and history museums are always my favorite. but jos - who doesn't particularly like history museums - also really enjoyed it and learned a lot, so that's at least one unbiased review of the place ha. we got audio guides b/c lonely planet said english descriptions were lacking - however they were totally unnecessary. the english descriptions were plentiful, though i did use the audio guide if i wanted more detailed info on a particular display.
the museum is set up very well, with arrows marking the best route. it's apparent a lot of careful planning went into it. 1st floor is dedicated to wars when dynasties ruled the land. 2nd floor is where we spent the bulk of our time and was dedicated to the korean war. it also had a "simulated emergency situation" room, which wasn't as serious as it was funny, and allowed jos and i to play dress up. finally the 3rd is a bit of a hodgepodge dedicated mainly to the various military branches. didn't spend much time here, as after 3hrs my head couldn't hold any more information in it.
outside in the fresh air, and passed what seemed like the entire korean army, made our way over to changdeokgung, the "must see" palace. we just missed one tour, so got tickets for the 1530 one and headed to insadong to explore. it was a maze of small alleyways lined with shops and restaurants. touristy? yes. but also cooler than i expected. found a great restaurant and got my "big dumpling soup" - and yup they were big! browsed a bit more, decided to come back later, and headed back to the palace. our guide was really funny, at least jos and i thought so, though because most of our group were not native english speakers, they didn't quite get some of the jokes and references he made. ah well. per lonely planet, the best part of the tour was the secret garden. alas, due to time of year, it was not in bloom and was under construction, so a bit disappointing. the other grounds still made for pleasant strolling.
we headed back to insadong as it was too late to see "the blue house" or cheongwadae, where the president lives/works. managed to get all of my main souvenirs here (with the sole exception of my short strand buddha beads), including the celadon green pottery i wanted. generally satisfied, we decided to make our way to costco. i know what you're thinking.. why is there a costco in korea, and why did you want to go there? well, we wanted to get ryan a birthday gift and a thanks-for-letting-us-crash-with-you gift. and what better than a gift card to costco. well.. try explaining the concept of a gift card in a foreign country. apparently either the language barrier was too much to overcome, or they just don't have gift cards in korea. they kept trying to sell us a membership card, so we finally accepted defeat and left empty handed. what a day.
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