Korea Journey Day 4 - Monday, August 18th

First full day in Seoul! The city is known for two main palaces, centuries-old structures that new Seoul has grown up and around in. We visit one of these palaces in the morning. At the gate, there are guards in period attire that are sort of like the guards at Buckinham Palace - they don't move a muscle when tourists come stand by them for pictures. So of course we had to get pics with them:




We toured the rest of the palace. It had all been restored in the last, um, several years. There was also a nice museum on the grounds. We were going to get our pictures taken in a hanbok (traditional dress), but it cost more than we thought, plus we ran out of time and it was starting to rain!





Next, the bus took us to Itaewan, the most "international" district, where expats usually hang out. We were supposed to have lunch at McDonald's (the vegetarians protested, and they gave us money to use somewhere else), then we had FOUR HOURS to spend in this shopping district. What?! It was so typical. The cool things we never had enough time at (hello, Busan?!) and other things they gave us waaaayyyy too much time. Anyway, I went up and down the street looking in all the shops for hours.


After Itaewan, we went to one of the coolest things yet - the Seoul Tower. It reminded me of the Space Needle in Seattle. We went up in the tower, and had a 360 degree view of Seoul, and let me just tell you, Seoul is HUGE, with so many people. On the wall were the names of cities you were facing, and how far they were from where we stood. I took my picture by one of Chicago :-)





The Seoul Tower had an awesome gift shop, too. I bought this super angel's wings necklace, since I felt like I was floating in the sky like an angel at the top of the tower :-)

That night, we ate at a Chinese restaurant! What? Oh well. The food was great. They kept bringing out dish after dish. Which is weird, because when you don't know about all the separate dishes, you eat as much as you can of the first one, not knowing if there will be more! It was pretty delish.

After that, a few of us went to the "biggest book store in Seoul," or so our guide, Ms. Park, kept telling us. It was on the way back to our hotel, so we walked there instead of taking the bus back. It pretty much looked like a normal bookstore, but it was super cool. They had the jelly watches!! And a store with crazy panda stuff. I bought a crazy panda umbrella there (finally broke down and got one). We did lose Shelly, and then Kathy, so maybe it was a really big store! Jaime, Shelly and I decided to leave from a different exit than we came in, and kind of got lost on the way back. Oh well. We found one of the temple gates and took some photos:


We finally found the river walk type thing that would lead us back to our hotel. It was neat - kind of like brush creek at the plaza, except cooler! They had lights set up in the water, and little stone bridges to walk across. It was so pretty, especially at night!



This was the last night for most of our group! My roommate Christina was leaving the next morning, and we decided to make a night out of it! We're in SEOUL, dammit! When were we going to be in SEOUL ever again?!?!?! We dressed up, and met Amanda, Melanie and Jeff downstairs at the Koreana and headed for the subway. The plan was to get a drink at the super-swank W Hotel first, then...

We bought beers at the convenience store down in the subway, then rode a LONG ways out to the W.

Christina, Melanie and Jeff on the subway

Once off the subway, we had quite a hike up to the W. I had some tall wedges on, but had some kind of superhuman strength and hoofed it right up there. The hotel and bar area were AMAZING. Super-posh, spaceship-like, with egg-pod chairs, blue lighting, and incredible views. After schmoozing ourselves into the bar, telling them we were friends with someone that was staying there, we slid into some egg chairs and ordered drinks. Well, instead of drinks, we got a set of shots that came in test tubes. Carolina, Jesse and Matt ended up meeting us there! We didn't stay too long. The drinks were REALLY expensive, about $15 each. So after our test tube shots, we moved on. But I did take pics inside the bathrooms, they were THAT COOL.








The subways were closed by then, so we cabbed it back downtown. We got some beers and drank on the sidewalk, which is more common and accepted than you'd think. Then we went to the late night market! Wow, what an experience. We went to Nam-Dae-Mun, which I think is a wholesale clothing market. Meaning, stores and vendors come here to buy clothes on the cheap, then resell them in their stores. So, so, so many clothes of every kind and type. Where did it all come from? It was a little magical, walking around this market, buzzed, in the wee hours of the night. We heard it didn't even open until 2 am, but I wonder if this was really the case. Anyway...So there are fake designer bag-sellers everywhere. We came upon this one stand of a guy selling fakes. Not knowing anything about fakes myself, Jeff, the guy in our group, said that these were really amazing fakes! Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, etc. He knew the styles, and this vendor had THE LATEST style of LV bags. I was eyeing a wallet for Nicholas...he does love his wallets. And while he's certainly not a fake label carrier, what a great story it would have! So Jeff and I made a deal with the guy - we both bought wallets, and got a discount. I treasured my fake Louis Vuitton wallet...until I got back to the US and actually looked at it closely, in the daytime, not drunk :-) Oh well, it's still a great story!!!!!

We wandered around some more, got some food, then (I think) made our way back to the hotel. But there was no way I was getting to sleep. I hadn't been sleeping well anyway, and getting back at 5 am after being out in Seoul, it wasn't happening that night. Oh, and we had a plan to get on the bus for an added tour to the DMZ the next (well, actually, that same) morning! My plan was to stay up...and skip the tour. Stay tuned for the next installment of Kelly in Seoul!