Touring Day

Holy moly, what a day.

I was finally up for good at about 7 am. I think this time change is God's way of preparing me for no sleep. Nick and I hit the breakfast in the hotel again. Guess who had rice again.... yep, you guessed it- Nick! Nick would like me to interject and tell you all Rice isn't the ONLY thing he is eating. He has pancakes and fruit too! They rotate the juices every morning and this morning was Apple and Mango. Oh my - it was the best apple juice I've ever had in my life! I almost made myself sick I drank so much.

We met our tour guide in the lobby of our hotel at 9:30. We were expecting a young college girl, but she actually was an older lady, like mom-ish older- wait, I'm a mom now... ok she has an 11 year old daughter. Her name was Lee and I'm so mad at myself I didn't get a picture of her!! She was so sweet. She actually lived in San Diego for 8 years and has only been back in Korea for a year, and she is going back to San Diego in the fall. Her husband is a importer for toners for printers.

Lee was great. She brought us a book for Bates!Um, yes, you read that right the book is called " Holding Poop at Night". It's a Korean folk lore book. I just thumbed through it and read some of it to Nick, let's just say I'm not sure this one will make it into story time at our house! But it's hilarious!

We headed to Insadong, but the shops weren't open yet, so she grabbed a cab and we went to Gyeonbokgung Place. Ok, this was our first cab riding experience, and OH.MY.WORD can you say scary. I mean, more than once I had to close my eyes. There may be lines in the road, but those are merely decoration! And the traffic lights, just pretty colored lights in the sky.

As we were walking up to the Palace, we heard a drum beating and Lee told us to hurry, it was the changing of the guards. We made it just in time. It was so neat to watch.
We toured through the Palace rather quickly, even for my taste. Nick only got to read a few signs. We are planning on going back before we leave to spend some more time there.

The palace was built in the 1800s for the Royal Family. You can walk all over the grounds, and see all the different buildings, it was very neat. My favorite part was the ceilings. They were so colorful! I'm thinking about doing this in my house... what do you think?At the Palace, there were LOTS of little school children on field trips. I loved looking at the faces of the little boys and wondering what Bates would be like at that age. Nick and I were like celebrities!! All the kids would wave and say "HI!!" Lee told us that English is taught in the school and the kids LOVE to talk to Americans.

After the whirlwind tour of the Palace we walked out and headed back towards Insadong. We walked past a Buddhist Temple. They are getting ready for Buddha's birthday and had all these lanterns hanging outside.Lee took us inside and got us a tour of some of the studios of art. We couldn't go in the Temple or the Prayer Rooms. We told Lee we were Christians and she told us she met the Lord in the US and is now a Christian. Her mother is a devout Buddhist and doesn't really speak to her anymore. We had seen this men around town in all grey suits, which I really liked, well, found out they are Buddhist Monks. So I guess getting one of those grey jackets is out of the question! (I'm gonna try to get a picture, but I didn't want to get in trouble in the Temple)

We then headed to Insadong where Lee helped us find a place to make Bates' name chop, the traditional name stamp. We found a place and Lee translated for us. I designed a stamp that is a little more traditional and has his American name and Korean name on it. We go back tonight and pick it up about 6 pm or so. We wanted to go ahead and pay for it, so we asked Lee how much. The name chop we designed, which is carved by hand, normally would be 50,000 won ($50) but the super nice man and woman who run the store told Lee since we were adopting a Special Needs child and people in Korea just cast them out, that they would do it for 30,000 won. Now, you know I love me a bargain, but this man and woman were so wonderful and kind.
I can't wait to get his chop tonight. They are packing it up in this neat box and giving us a really neat certificate and stuff. I can't wait!!!

We asked Lee to ask them if they could do a name scroll too. Somehow it got all lost in translation, but we ended up picking out something really awesome and the nice man did it for free. We just made a donation to the Children of North Korea that the Monks are trying to help. We get to pick these name signs up tonight too and I can't wait. We got one for Bates in his full Korean name and one with the word "Brown" on it!

In addition to being a life saver, Lee took us to SEVERAL art galleries. I don't know why she thought we would like them, I'm sure we looked incredibly bored in them, but every time we would walk past one (and there were LOTS!) she was point us in. So Nick and I have had our cultural Art Education! She also made us drink Korean coffee after we told her we didn't like coffee, so we ended up carrying these cups of coffee around all day. After I found a place to pour mine out when she wasn't looking, Nick followed suit.

Something to note about Korea, it's incredibly clean, like no trash anywhere - which is great. Trouble is there are no trash cans either! I don't know how they keep it clean with no trash cans. So needless to say, Nick had to carry our empty cups around most of the day!

After we picked out the name chop, we headed down the small small small alley around the corner, down another small alley, to this small wooden door. Our lunch stop.

I don't think Korean food gets more traditional than this! We had Bulgogi and cooked it at our table. We had lots of side dishes, like royalty. Lee told us only Royalty gets more than 3 side dishes at a meal- I think we had like 9!It was ok. We didn't love it... didn't hate it. It was ok. I actually like the Korean food in America better.

After lunch we headed to Namdaemum Market. This involved another life threatening cab ride.

Oh, Namdeamum Market.... how to even describe this place. I don't think words will do it justice. It's like China Town on crack. Holy Moly, the stuff. It's incredible! Now we know, I'm a shopper, and this place totally overwhelmed me. It was street after building after alley after cart of stuff! I'm talking 6 story buildings all of little booths of people selling stuff! I don't think my pictures will do it justice, it's the wildest place. We may go back there, but I'm afraid we would get lost and not be able to get back to the outside world!



Our tour was officially over now. We exchanged email addresses with Lee. She was so wonderful, despite the Art Gallery Tours. We gave her a little gift of some lotion and a huge Dove Chocolate Bar. It was possible we might have two tour guides, so brought two gifts just in case, so we were able to give her one to give her daughter. She was so excited and said her daughter would LOVE it!

We asked Lee to put us on a Taxi and send us to Seoul Tower. She loaded us up and off we went... into the big city alone.

I'll post the rest of our day later.... see, I told you, busy day!