Tuesday was my first day to explore Korea on my own. Unfortunately, it was also the day that my allergies decided to attack full force...

So maybe going to an herbal market wasn't the best idea, but having proven in earlier posts that I don't always think these things through (Canada being cold in December, eh?), I ventured to Gyeongdong market without a second thought.

As soon as I got off the subway (achoo!), I realized my mistake. The sight of herbs falling into the street from various stalls was defnintely (sneeze!) interesting, but the smells mixed together into one big (sniff!) allergy fest. I tried going into different alleys of the market, but once I left the herbs, I hit the fish. Neither one smelled extremely delicious...so I bought a few apples and got back on the subway (ahhhh...).





Next on my list was Dongdaemun market, supposedly a fashion market. It was incredibly confusing...I'm so used to Western malls! The market was simply stalls selling anything you could imagine...CDs, jeans, shoes, etc. You had to know your size, however, since dressing rooms were definitely not present, and since they use different measurements here, I was lost. So I wandered around to enjoy the experience and then left without making any purchases. Probably a good thing, in the long run.




















On Wednesday, I decided that I wanted to hit a museum, so I chose the Korean War Memorial Museum. It was extremely cool. There were statues and stuff outside, which were neat, but since it was cold, windy, and sneeze-inducingly sunny, I went inside after a cursory glance (and a few pictures since something was FINALLY worth taking a picture of...). The museum itself was great, although a lot of it was in Korean which I didn't get at ALL. Luckily, enough was in English that I didn't feel gipped out of my admission fee. (Admission fees here are amazing - at $3, this was the most expensive fee I've seen/read about yet.) I saw weapons and military uniforms and depictions of battles and read a lot. I've never known anything about the Korean War, so I wanted to learn more, and I did! It's really amazing that American children aren't taught more about this, especially with the modern day worries about North Korea - I mean, a majority of Americans don't even know what the war was about or even that it's technically still going on! I mean, an entire country is divided (families haven't been allowed to reunite for decades!) and we (the future leaders of a world "superpower") are oblivious to the factors behind it...unbelievable.

Anyway...

After the museum, I went to Itaewon. I ate a sushi lunch ($7 got me sushi, soup, onions (these little pearl onions sauteed in something...delicious!), and green tea...perfect!) and then wandered around looking for the bookstore and an earring store Beth said has cheap, fun earrings...but I found neither. So I went back home, took some Benadryl, and relaxed for the evening.

My Thursday was totally low-key because my allergies had begun morphing into a cold. So I spent most of the day inside, reading and sleeping. Finally, I decided that I had to get out of the apartment for at least a little bit. So I looked up bookstores in Seoul (another reason I had to get out...I had nothing more to read!!!) and found the one in Itaewon that I had been looking for the day before - with a map! So I headed out thataway. Once off the subway, I overshot the road I was looking for by a little bit and I found...the earring store!! So I found BOTH shops that I'd been looking for the day before. And I got more reading material. :-)




















Friday, I knew I had to do something, so I decided I'd get on a tour bus of Seoul - one that lets you get on and off. A good idea, in theory, but after spending an hour looking for the tour bus stop and then waiting for a bus to stop, I was cold. The tour guide mentioned that I wasn't dressed warmly enough, which I found odd - until I took off the mask I've been wearing to abate my allercold, and found an icicle! hanging off of it! Now, I'm used to Chicago winter, but that's ridiculous! Apparently it was -15 degrees Celsius. So instead of hopping on and off the bus...I stayed on! Which worked out fine because I got to see a lot of Seoul and they had blurbs about each of the stops in English, so I learned a lot too.

That night was dinner at Seoul Tower. The dinner was totally worth the drama it took to get there, but while we were standing at the subway, freezing our arses off, we weren't so sure it would be. We waited at least 30 minutes for a taxi to take us to the cable car, which then took us up to the base of about a million stairs that we had to climb before getting to the tower. However, the meal was delicious (Korean-style salmon and lots of side dishes...and ice cream corns, of course! (Oh Konglish...)). It didn't take as long to catch a cab back, which was nice, so we went to Itaewon, where I took the subway back while Ken and Beth went to RMT for a bit. I was conked by the time they got back. I mean, we had a weekend to start the next day!

But more on that later...
Lace