I plan to do a lot today so I have to get up early and get out to the station and make it happen. I wanted to get up early and out of the house, but it never really worked out. I ended up leaving the hotel around 10am for Bomun station. I took a quick little trip to Gyengbokmung Palace. I got there right at the perfect time because they were doing a guard changing ceremony at the main gate. It wasn’t as spectacular as the one that I saw yesterday, but still it was pretty cool. This place was pretty big and wide. After I entered the palace grounds, I was able to look at different buildings with traditional Korean architecture.
Gyengbokmung Palace is the number one recommended place to go in Seoul. I’m glad I got to go. I was able to get a lot of pictures taken of the grounds and followed around with some other language groups to get a little free tour. But I ran off ahead of them because I wanted to get more pictures and to see things that they didn’t think of seeing. The grounds were pretty nice and had interesting things, but it wasn’t as grand as I thought that it would be. It was a nice contrast to go from modern to traditional though.
Cheungbokmung Palace is the number two recommended place and is recognized as a world heritage site. You could only be allowed in with a tour guide. They only had a few times offered for the English language, so I decided to go with a more frequent Japanese language group. I thought that the tour would be very long since they announced that it would take about 1 hour and 15 minutes. That’s a long time to look around the heritage site. I thought it was worth it though. There was a lot to see and it was interesting to have someone take me around instead of me going around by myself. I think that I learned a lot about it too. The tour guide’s Japanese was easier to understand than the one from H.I.S. and the tour went pretty smooth. The actual tour went around 1 hour and 25 minutes when I looked at my watch to see how long it took. I was a bit surprised since it looked very long on the map, but in actuality, it really wasn’t that long. I think those maps are scaled incorrectly. I picked up a Snickers for lunch, which really wasn’t much of a lunch. I ate it around noon and it was a good thing too. I don’t think that I would have survived the tour if I hadn’t eaten something. I wanted to see everything on my list and I had a tight schedule to follow too.
I went to a famous or at least popular temple after the palace that was called Jyumong. I thought that it was pretty popular because there were a ton of people there. People were everywhere, but they were outside of the temple. They also had a tour group, but I didn’t come at the right time and I didn’t want to wait, so I just entered it and went around by myself. I didn’t think that it was that great, but it is also another world cultural heritage site. It looked pretty much the same as the other places that I went today, but a little smaller. I didn’t get to see the whole thing, and didn’t really want to either, but it was cool. I had been walking the whole time and I started to get really hungry since I only had a snickers to eat.
I decided that I needed to try something American, since on my other trips I’ve had something cultural and something foreign. So I decided on Pizza Hut since it was near the station. I ordered a Super Supreme, small pizza. It was so good and I miss eating pizza hut. I actually have been craving it, but we don’t have sit-in in Japan, so I took a chance. I think that the other place I wanted to eat something American, was Krispy Kreme, but that wasn’t near where I was or where I wanted to go. The pineapple juice wasn’t quite what I expected though. It was more than enough and I was surprised that I was able to finish it. It took a little while to stuff myself and all the calories that I’ve burned off from walking all around Seoul, quickly came back.
I jumped on the subway from Jyongmong station to Myeoung-dong station so I could go to Seoul Tower. It was a bit hard to figure out how to get there actually. I thought that I could just look at where it was and go to the base and it would really be that easy. But it didn’t look to be that easy, so I needed to find another way. I learned how to get on the bus and that’s what I did. I took a yellow 02 bus to that took me to the top of the mountain to the base of the N. Seoul Tower. It was very convenient to take the bus since it took me where I wanted to go. It was a lot easier to use than I thought it would be because I can’t speak Korean. I just used the T-Money card that I picked up yesterday and I still have enough money on it.
I went during the afternoon, so I only have afternoon shots, and I heard that it was better to go at night so you could see all the night lights. But I think that it is a good contrast to have day pictures since I only have night pictures of all the other towers around the world that I’ve been too. I realized that when I was looking around, I had only traveled around just the north part of Seoul. I got a lot of pictures from different angles and different views. I also took a little break to write some postcards too. It was a nice little break for me to enjoy the view and to write some postcards. I stayed there till around 6pm and then decided to leave.
I took the same bus back to a different station that was actually a little more convenient than I thought it would be. It was still light out and hadn’t gotten dark, so I couldn’t get any night pictures of Seoul. I headed towards Gangnam because I would be meeting my friend there. It was nice to see him. I haven’t seen anyone from his term at Grossmont for a long time. We went around the place and found a yogurt shop to sit at and talk. I really don’t like yogurt and he didn’t either, but we decided to go anyways. The place is called Red Mango, and I didn’t get many pictures of the place. I had a Café Latte Yogurt with Caramel. It was interesting and actually pretty good. But I think that it did a number on me and on my stomach. I was sitting there for a long time talking with my friend about the good ol’ days at Grossmont. I was catching him up with what our friends are up to. I heard a lot about what he has been up to working at Samsung. It was pretty good and I’m glad that it worked out and we were able to meet. We stayed there for about 3 hours talking. I had to leave around 11pm because I needed to catch the train back to my hotel and start packing. I felt really sick upon my arrival at the hotel and couldn’t get to sleep.
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