I had quite a busy day on Saturday! I was set to meet up with Tim, but that wasn't going to be until 3pm. So I decided to go on a little adventure to Downtown Seoul. I left my apartment around 10:30, and it took about 45 minutes to take the bus and the subway to Myeondong Station. I walked through Myeongdong Market up to one of the main roads and headed towards City Hall. Downtown Seoul is actually really nice. There are a lot of buildings, but they are spaced apart so the skyline isn't so crowded. And all the buildings look so different, everywhere you look you see something new. There are some really nice looking hotels there as well, Lotte Hotel, The Westin, The President Hotel. One thing that was a bit of a bother though, not all intersection have crosswalks. There are usually underground shopping centers, and people go into them and go out another exit when they want to cross the street. But of course, being foreign and unable to read Korean, I didn't want to go into one shopping center and come out completely lost. But it turned out to be a good thing, because in my search for a cross walk it lead me to new areas.

I passed Seoul Plaza which has this amazing facade. At first I thought it was covered in little LCD screens that changed to make the front look as if it were blowing in the wind. But as I got closer, I realized that the "LCD screens" were actually small plastic circles attached tothe front of the building, and they actually did move with the wind. It was pretty awesome. From Seoul Plaza I took a look up the street and found the Bank of Korea. Well, I found two Banks of Korea. One was the older building, and one was the new technologically improved building. There was also a Bank of Korea Museum. I didn't have time to look at it, but I'm sure I'll go back eventually. There was also a good view of Seoul Tower which is in Namsan Park. It's like the Space Needle of South Korean, but with many more people. I hear that on weekends it's absolutely packed.

Then I went back to Seoul Plaza, because right next to it is Deoksugung, one of the five Palaces in Seoul. And it's literally right in downtown. It only cost 1,000 to get in and look around, so I stopped in. Deoksugung was built in the 1400s and served as the symbolic heart of Seoul for hundreds of years. The palace used to be much larger, but during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s much of the land was sold and the building destroyed. You enter first through Daehanmun Gate (right) and come first to Jungwajeon Hall (left) which was the main throne hall when it was built in 1902. As you meander through the Palace you also see Jeukjodang which was the main throne hall before 1902, Hamnyeongjeon which was the Emperor's sleeping quarters built in 1897, and Jeonggwanheon which was used to hold banquets for foreigners. There is also Seokjojeon which is a western-style building that was created as part of the Han Empire's attempts to westernize. There are many more buildings as well, these were just some of the main ones. On the way out of the Palace, you can see the Royal Guard in front of Daehanmun Gate. They have changing of the guard ceremonies, but I wasn't there long enough to see it.


These are some other pictures of Deoksugung and its buildings. You can see that it is surrounded by the city of Seoul












































After seeing Deoksugung, I wandered deeper into Seoul. I found a really beautiful fountain, with a sculpture of Admiral Lee Sun-Sin in the middle. And just past that was a gold statue of who I believe to be Confucius. Further back was Gwanghwamun Square, and past that were a few mountains, although I'm not sure which ones.

After that I made my way to Dongdaemun to meet up with Tim. I could have taken the subway, but it didn't seem like that long of a walk. Well, it was. I finally made it though, and with time to stop at Dongdaemun Shopping Center to pick up buttons for the slippers that I've been making (but that's a whole new blog). After meeting up with Tim, we decided to take the subway to Olympic Park which was created to commemorate the 1988 Olympics. The park is huge, and it's filled with tons of sculptures (most of which were strange and questionable).

So Tim and I took a trip around the park, stopping to look at the artwork and wonder what the hell we were looking at. We found a random giant thumb sticking out of the ground. I wished there had been some of those plaques with the "artists interpretation" so we can at least attempt to figure out what the scultures were for. There was also one that looked like kind of like a half-pipe coming out of the ground and covered with grass, and some weird structure made of metallic spheres cut in half. The scenery was very nice, because all the trees are changing color and the leaves are falling, so it made for a great scene. It was still pretty cold though, probably in the 30s, but lower with the windchill.

After our little wander through the park, we decided to hop back on the subway and go to the COEX in Samseong building to get dinner. COEX is the Convention Center/giant underground mall that is filled with restaurants, coffee shops, and clothing stores. So we got a quick bit to eat and stepped back out into the cold. Just outside one of the doors in a Buddhist Temple called Bongeunsa which houses Korea's largest standing Buddha statue. It was dark and pretty much deserted when we went, so we only stopped in for a bit. There was the main building where people were doing their worship, and then there was the huge Buddha statue, surrounded by flowers, candles and offerings. It looked pretty cool in the dark, so I'll have to go back during the daylight sometime.

From there we hoped on the subway again to meet up with Tim's friend Dok in Sadang. There we stopped at a Hofbrau house for a few drinks and the cheapest thing on the menu. Some places in Korea require you to order food with your drink purchase, which was the case here. I told Tim earlier that I would hang out with him and his friends in Sinchon, but by the time we were done with our drinks, it was almost 9:30pm and I was completely wiped out. I think I probably walked upwards of 5 miles throughout the day. So the three of us got back on the subway, Tim stayed on line 2 to go back to Sinchon, and Dok and I went to line 4 which aparently we both live on, but in completely opposite directions. I wasn't sure how long it was going to take me to get home, simply because that was the farthest I've been away from Ssangmun Station before. Dok though it would take at least an hour and a half, but with the subway to the station and then the bus to my apartment, it was only an hour. And thankfully I had gotten on a new train, so there were plenty of open seats.