It started off as a very normal day in Korea...
Insadong.
We had a nice walk through Insadong - a district of Seoul with lots of shops and things to buy and old style buildings. A great place for a foreigner to get a great taste of Asia.
Strange cone things that they fill with ice cream... We decided we just wanted ice cream, no crazy cone, so we moved on.
This little guy insisted we put on his small hat and hold this massive hammer for making ddok (rice cakes). And he was just really happy to pose in the photo as well!
Except for with me, not so amused.
But he just loved James!
Cheonggyecheon Stream.
We walked along the fake stream that runs through Seoul. I guess at one point they completely built over the stream (in their period of 'hurry, take away anything green and replace it with flat cement and rectangular buildings'). However, now Koreans are realizing natural things are actually quite nice, so they dug out the stream and essentially built it and now there is a 'natural' stream running through the city!
Oh you've just gotta love the matchy matchy..
The streets of Seoul.
And then then quickly turned strange...
And soon we were the part of the entertainment.
Getting shoved around by crazy old ladies!
The singer finally stopped, the MC asked us where we were from... then there was some more Korean words spoken of which I didn't know what was said followed by the crowd laughing. I grabbed Alex and said, let's go - I have no idea what's being said and they are laughing at us! haha We got handed a bottle of water by a lady who looked rather important, I guess as our 'payment' for the entertainment!And then, just down the road not more than 20 minutes later.....
We stumbled upon a group doing a tae-kwon-do performance. We were maybe 4 rows back, so it was a little hard to see, but I wanted Alex to get more 'Asian' taste of how they do things over here.
We watched a few awesome kicks/breaking board/flip combos and then one of the performers walks in our direction and asks if we want to try. I didn't and James didn't, but I said Alex --- GO! She did some tae-kwon-do along with 3 other foreigners (they only chose foreigners - how racist haha).
She did well and has the broken boards to prove that it really happened!
Gwanghwamun Gate and Palace.
Then we were back to more normal happenings... well I guess right after the small military of brightly dressed men marched by, then we were back to normal, well as normal as it gets 3 white people wandering around the streets of Asia.
This palace was gorgeous and the grounds around it were wide open, with grass and trees and a pond. It was peaceful and quiet, so different from the hustle of Seoul just outside the gates.
I really forgot we were in a city of 10 million people for a moment, and it was nice.
James being James and trying to copy this little kid....
What the heck is this? and why? I just don't get it....
We made it to Itaweon for some food. We found a nice little restaurant and ended up splitting a couple of platters, a british one and one with meatballs and fries. It was delicious. We probably should have fed Alex kimchi and rice for her first meal, but I didn't want to scare her out of Korea just yet!
Banpo Bridge.
It luckily stopped raining just in time for the light show which goes like this: music is played, and the water moves and dances and the colors change. (kind of like the Bellagio in Vegas). It was a beautiful night and they even shot off some fireworks. We swore the small boat was going to catch on fire, but luckily it didn't!
We headed home that night to sleep in our own place. She was tired/jet lagged and had had enough fun/excited/performing for the Korea people for one day!!
