Insadong is the traditional shopping district (ie: tourist trap). It was pretty fun, mainly because Zach and I went with two classmates. We had some traditional food (I think I have a picture of some of it, it was pretty good), walked around a lot, they bought us some honey-candy (I intend to get some more to bring home), and we went out to tea (Amazing. There was a 5 fruit-tea, a citron-tea, a sweet fermented-rice tea, and a Chinese Quince tea. All sweet and delicious, as well as unique). The girls were a lot of fun and very sweet (Leibe and Hrul Hang, both names are likely misspelled). Hrul Hang took my camera and took pictures pretty much all day, so they're...interesting to say the least.
Dongdaemoon was interesting, but I liked the first market (Nongdaemoon or w/e) better. It was raining all day, so we didn't go to the palaces like we had originally hoped...and I really just spent most of the day holding onto some heavy Dolsuts (Traditional stone bowls, you heat them up and they cook food while you eat it. It's great.), but I still enjoyed myself. Also, an older Korean woman hand fed me when I ate her food poorly (certainly a highlight of my trip.) Later that night a few of us (Stephanie, Tanesha, Deahna) went to Green Pasta (Italian, recomended by my buddy, Sue) and stuffed waffles/kipingsu (shaved ice topped in syrup/fruit topped with vanilla ice cream), all of which was extremely delicious (and fairly inexpensive).
COEX mall was a blast. There was a big group of us (Zach, Sue, Namin, Jang Mien, Randall, Jinsook, and eventually Sue's boyfriend, whose name escapes me right now). We went to Uno's (expensive!...but not bad), an aquarium (loads of pictures, and I learned various animal names), a coffee shop, and just generally hung-out and had a great time. I got some gifts and wished father/Steve happy father's days. I think I know what I am bringing home for everyone now, so I just need to pick things up. The day, of course, ended at a waffle house withfruit-shaved ice drink (basically a one-fruit smoothy), and some weird bun with melted butter in the middle. Also hot dogs. All pretty tasty and inexpensive (pretty standard for food in korea).
So far so good, though class tomorrow. I sort of just want to hang out around Seoul and have fun, as there's a lot to do and so little time to do it. The law students went to Jeju Island, home of Jeju Land the adult amusement park. They had lots of fun, so I really want to go now. I should also be meeting up with Prof. Jin Park sometime before I leave, she's going to show me around Korea Uniersity (Kodai) where she will be teaching. Final news, my Korean is finally improving. I am very happy about this, as it has taken a while. It's thanks to a mix of renewed effort/language tapes Zach gave me.
Anyway, more to come soon. Also, if you know a good image site for mass uploads please tell me. I don't want to just do facebook or image shack if I can help it, but I'm not sure of the alternatives.
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