On Sunday, we ventured to Gyeongbokgung Palace. I had been here before but it's by far the most "grand" of the palaces and it's the easiest one to find. When the name is translated into English it means "Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven." The Palace was oringailly built in the 1300's but was completely destroyed by the Japanese during their last occupation of Korea. They are working on restoring everything back to its original state.
We checked out the National Folk Museum. They had an exhibit on the "Multicultral Families" of Korea. They must not of had a native English speaker read their information before they published it because it said there are 890 million foreigners living in Korea. Considering the whole country only has around 50 million, I somehow think they got it wrong. The other intersting thing was they only showed multicultural familes from other Asian countries, Russia, and a middle eastern country I couldn't remember the name of. The exhibit did not mention anything about the western influence on Korea or mention anything about the numerous westerners that have married Koreans and had children. Once again, interesting.
There was a multicultural fair that was taking place and was connected to the "Hi Seoul Festival." There was a stage where people from other countries performed their traditional dances or entertainment. There was a pretty awesome dragon dance, some twirling yo-yo looking things, and a girl that could twirl tables, other humans and pots with her legs. It was absolutely amazing. The girl probably weighed 100 pounds and she was throwing the table around like it was nothing. When she twirled her two assistants on a long pole with her feet I almost fell over. Now that's some talent!
We then wandered into Insadong which is very touristy and has lots of stuff to buy. We found Starbucks and bought a few trinkets. We also had lunch and ate some delicious pork. At the table next to us were some Americans that were here working on some project for the US government. They had ordered fried baby octopus and were mesmerized by it. It was fun to watch them try to eat with chopsticks and freak out about eating a whole baby octopus. I'm kind of amazed how this eating and seeing weird stuff doesn't even phase me too much any more. Oh and may I add, I'm pretty killer at chopsticks now!
We came back to my neighborhood and went bowling with my Korean friends. The bowling alley is a straight throwback to the late 80's. It still beats the old Yuma bowling alley though because it keeps score for you. The bowling alley is super close to my house and it is also cheap (appx $1.50 to rent shoes and $3.00 a game). I came out the victorious winner as I had some mad skills and opened the game with two strikes.
We then went to see the new X-Men movie which I hated and thought was a big waste of time. Anyway, the night ended by us not being able to find our way out of the movie theatre as it is on the 15th floor of the department store next to my house. Since the department store was closed when the movie was over, there wasn't access to the escalators and the elevator wasn't stopping on certain floors. We ended up getting into the underground parking garage and hiking our way out through the in-ramp. Oops!
Stayed tuned. There's definitely more stories to be told!
And always, you can check out all of my photos on my Picasa web album here...http://picasaweb.google.com/christinestroup
No comments:
Post a Comment