What a jam-packed day! I woke up early and met Phil and Kristin at Hongdae station. We started our morning at Gyeongbok Palace, arriving almost as soon as it opened. They both really enjoyed the palace and palace grounds. It was pretty quiet as most of the other tourists hadn't arrived. Then we stopped at the National Folk Museum on the palace grounds as well.
After Gyeongbok Palace, we walked on to Insadong, the artsy/souvenir area. We browsed in there and watched the "performance" of making a royal snack of honey and corn flour. After watching Phil decided he'd buy a package. I suggested a snack towards the end of Insadong--we got hoddeok (the fried pancakes) and got one filled with a spicy bulgogi (beef), one filled with noodles and one sweet one filled with sugar. They were all delicious. We took the snacks to a park and sat and rested a bit there.
Next was on to Cheonggyecheon, to see the stream that I love. We walked there and walked along the stream a bit. Finally we walked to a subway station to take a line to the Han River. We joined the GOA'L potluck picnic--a joining of 4 adoptee organizations-and had an American BBQ lunch that was way delicious! After lunch, Phil and Kristin took a walk along the river and I visited with some of the people. Then it was off to Namdaemun. We walked through the market and then went to the gate. After that, we were going to also see City Hall, but it was already 4:30 and I figured they would want a rest and time to clean up before dinner.
We headed to Hongdae and split for a few hours. Later Phil, Kristin, Jacob and I met up and went to dinner for Korean BBQ. We ordered thinly shaved beef, a steak cut and shrimp to grill. As we were looking at the menu, Kristin asked "where are the sides?". I said there were some stews and soups as sides and she seemed a bit puzzled. We ordered and all the little Korean side dishes came out. Kristin was surprised and joked "where are all the sides?!" when she saw how much other stuff came with our order. Dinner was delicious. While we were eating, Felix, one of our adoptee friends from soccer came in with a family (he runs a tour program for adoptees from France) and sat next to us at dinner.
After dinner, we walked around Hongdae a little and went to the playground. Then we went to Schneeballen and ordered a schneeballen for dessert. Kristin had the honor of breaking up the dessert. We made plans for the next day and parted ways.
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| Phil and Kristin at Gyeongbok Palace |
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| Phil and me at the palace |
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| Phil and Kristin at Cheonggyecheon |
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| Jacob and me at the GOAL picnic |
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| Phil and me at Namdaemun |
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| Kristin, Phil, Jacob and me at dinner :) |
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| Jacob making sure our dessert doesn't escape! |
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| Phil taking a turn at the hammer! |
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