Saturday is a time to play... and sightsee

On Saturday, the 10th, Julie wakes me up and off to Gwanghwamun we go: which is known for having a really famous palace.

Lunch at 12pm, but while waiting for Leslie this creepy 'businessman' comes up and talks to Julie, asking, 'como estas?' and he gets her to take his phone number. he's really adamant about it. Leslie, who is Korean, comments that Koreans are pretty friendly to foreigners, especially if they look foreign, but to me he seemed a little TOO friendly. Julie comments that most people who talk to her automatically assume she doesn't speak English. I'm sure that's gotta be so weird for her.



This blog post will be mostly pictures.


Maybe hazy days make better for pictures?

You can try on these kingly outfits FOR FREE...

Sejong the Great: he CREATED Hangul! (aka the Korean alphabet system, which leslie boasts is almost the phonetically perfect language)

Photospot in the museum! you had to take off your shoes.





The palace we went to see was Gyeongbokgung (3000W for admission), which is famous for where the last queen/empress, Empress Myeongseong/Queen Min, was assassinated in 1895 (source: Wiki)





Japanese-speaking tour guide! It was super humid, so it was amazing she was wearing this outfit and walking around! PROPS!


Whee.

I like seeing that beyond the palace walls, is still the city.



Tired and sticky from the heat, we make our way to Insadong to meet up with Heather.
Insadong is known to be a great tourist attraction and has a lot of souvenirs and postcards.

Looking for a snack, we stop at Heather's favorite teahouse.

...which has little birds that sound like woody the woodpecker and are trained to poop in a certain corner!

We all order the watermelon + 5-taste tea/punch (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, astringnt), which comes with little puffed rice cake snacks.

So refreshing and relaxing! For 7000W I check another thing off my goal list.

Fish in the bathroom... don't miss or go in the wrong place!!

This really good pumpkin taffy. It tasted like bread but was like taffy!!

Random things you see. like wombats. NBD?

We get to pass by the Han River on the subway :]

A car parking contraption- they have 'em in Japan too. This is for valet parking- we went to Apujeoung, the rich part of Seoul. You see movie stars around this area and it's known for being hella bougie

I can't say no to writing on a good graffiti wall


We ordered pork and beef, but she basically just gave us pork. meh.

All this for 6000W~7000W/person

We went looking everywhere for a waffle and ice cream shop, but we just went to coldstone. YAY CHOCOLATE DEVOTION! 2900W for 'taste it'


The night begins to sprinkle on us so I just call it a night at around 11pm. I watch the Germany-Uruguay game, fall asleep in the middle of it, and wake up for the end. win! I streamed it on my netbook. my roommate rooted for Germany, and I rooted for Uruguay, because we believed our respective teams to really good-looking. Obviously we love the world cup for the sport of futbol.