We did arrive at the way early hour of about 5 am, so we slowly moved through customs (though there was no one else trying to leave at that time....the airport was so empty!) When we made it to the entrace to the airport, we determined that Mrs. Jones would stay behind with all our carry-on lugguage in the most convient spa located on the far end of the terminal, all the way down on the base floor. It was quite the nice hidden jewel, as she got a private room, shower, and access to spa facitilites while us kids went gallivanting off into Seoul.
First off, things are way expensive in Korea! While the airport was located about 1 hour away from the city, it cost us just under $9 each way for bus fare! (In Seattle, we pay only $2.50 each way for the lightrail) And then, on top of it all, we were so tired and all wanted to sleep on the way, but we didn't know when to get off, so Charis kindly stayed awake to poke the rest of us awake when we rolled into town. We had previously talked with a missionary who was currently staying at the place we were in Manila, but who was from Seoul, and he had given us some touristy things to try to see. Mainly he had written out a rough map using landmarks of downtown, but forgot to put which way was north....
When we finally decided that whatever the bus driver called out sounded like the name of the place we were looking for and knowing that we had been on the bus for about an hour (our prescibed time), we jumped off and found the most curious statue - a tall silhoutte of a man with a hammer just like the one outside of the SAM! And to top it all off, Seoul really felt like Seattle to me, so I was almost confused as to where we were....I did notice that every sign was in Korean :)
We wandered around for a while trying to figure out where exactly the giant statue we were looking for was place (one of a man on a horse, in the middle of an intersection, so you'd think it wouldn't be hard to find!) We did see some cool archetecture and the outside of some crazy refolding museum, an art museum, and a history museum all in the same small block area. We just passed by everything, looking very much the tourists. We were also all wearing matching red polo shirts embroidered with the Kids International Ministries logo and a Filipino flag. We definitely stood out!
After about a half hour, we decided to walk up the street a ways to see if we could find that statue. Along the way we meet a nice man, a doorman I think, who not only pointed us in the right direction (we were headed there) but also gave us a tiny origami frog he had made!
We found the statue, and the river walk that we were aiming for next to it in short order, but in the meantime, the boys of our group had found a public pay toilet. It looked like the one down by Pike's in Seattle, but apparently this one cost roughly 10 cents and let you use the facilities for 10 minutes....apparently this was exciting enough that all of them had to try it out....
After that small side detour, we found our way along the river walk and enjoyed the pretty haven right in the middle of the city. It was a very cool set up - the river ran right down the middle of the street, but it was sunk down about 25 feet with large retaining walls and a sidewalk on both sides and small foot bridges occasionally allowing one to pass to the other side of the river. Really, though, it was more like a shallow crick, 15 feet wide and 5 inches deep in parts.
My favorite part of the river walk, however, was when we stopped to take a group picture, posing on some rocks that were stepping stones to the other side of the creek. We had some funny poses, but we heard the strangest laughter from up high. We looked up and found a bunch of Asian people filming and taking photos of us goofing off on the rocks! We just laughed and ignored them, but I was so surprised!
Finally we made our way back down the river walk and headed for the palace we had been told we needed to go see. It is called Gyeongbok Palace and quite the large complex! We showed up right when they were doing a demonstration of the changing of guard during the palace's more active days; it was quite fun to see all the different costumes designating different ranks and parts of the guard. We had been taking with a greeter at the front of the palace before hand, and he showed us one of the better places to see the performance and convinced us to spend the $4 to get into the palace.
To kill some time before the English speaking tour started, we headed over to the free part of the museum that was filled with all the artifacts they had pulled out of the palace, as well as things from previous kings and occupants. It was a good way to start the experience because we went into the tour knowing some of the history (well, as much as you can get in 45 minutes of looking at objects behind glass!) The coolest thing was a replica of the water clock one of the kings commissioned that actually kept accurate time. It was an amazing piece of engineering!
We ended up on the tour eventually and our matching shirts made more than one person inquire about KIM and what our team was doing in the Philippines, which was great! Also on the tour was a couple from Poland (I think??!!) and a young couple. About halfway through the palace tour, Alex realized that he had been through it before, but had started from the back gate, which is why he didn't recognize anything for a while. I must admit, I loved all the color work and intricate details and repeating patterns, but would not have loved to do the job of painting all it! The colors were brilliant bold primary colors that created amazing motifs. Many of the sleeping buildings for the king and queen actually had heated floors, fed by fires that were burned in little doors along the underside outside. We had a great tour guide and were able to see all the best parts of the palace (or so she said :) )!
After the tour we decided to head in the direction Insadong, a touristy area of Seoul that we had been pointed towards. We had asked a couple Koreans where the closest place would be for some good, authentic Korean food, and both pointed us to Insadong. We were able to find a suprisingly cheap ($5 a plate!) place for the most authentic Korean I've ever had. We were glad they had pictures and a few English words on the menu, as we just picked was looked pleasing. And all our choices were great! The metal chopsticks (apparently that's the type they use in Korea) were a bit challenging to manuever and got hot with use in my hot dish, but over a great meal experience. My favorite part of the mean was when the waiter came to give us the bill and it was all in Korean. All of it. The food, prices, total...eventually the waiter typed up a number on a calculator and showed us how much won we owed, and we were able to find a menu and pull prices off it to divvy up who owed what.
After a filling lunch we wandered the street a bit, all getting ice cream along the way, and I picked up two great new teacups and a teaspoon! Fortuantly, Alex and Charis were paying attention to where we had traveled and somehow (I think partially by the grace of God!) we ended up on the right street to pick up the bus we needed to catch to get back to the airport. They glitch in our plan, however, was to figure out how to buy our bus pass. At the airport we had pre-bought tickets at a window, but there was no such place on the side of the street. We went over to a magazine/snack kiosk near the bus stop to try to ask about where to pay, but she spoke absolutely no English. Fortunatly, a man passing down the street overheard our failing conversation and popped in, translated, got an answer for our question and kept moving on his way. Apparently, we just needed to pay when we got on the bus. All was well and we made it back to the airport in plenty of time to make it back to our terminal. In fact, Alex, Chris, and I even got a McDonald's ice cream cone because they were less than 40 cents! So fantastic! I also picked up a bunch of Korean candy for my family because I didn't want to go to the trouble of exchanging the three dollars I had left in won.
Overall, I really enjoyed our time in Seoul and would not mind going back, at least for more than 7 hours!
As you can tell from my other postings, we did eventually make it safely back to Seattle and went our separate ways until school started again. I really enjoyed my experience overseas, both in the Philippines and Korea, and am so blessed I had the chance to see God's work going on there and to get to help out a bit myself. I loved our team and loved getting to see a bit where Charis grew up, especially since I never thought it would actually happen! I hope you have enjoyed following my long and drawn-out adventures and I thank you for your support and prayers while I was journeying!
And I took thousands of photos while I was overseas, so if you want to see any more, email me, call me, text me, facebook me....just get in touch and I can show you some!
I think I will continue to blog a bit, especially since I have an exciting NASA Microgravity experience coming up in April and I'm going back to NASA this summer. We'll see if anything else catches my eye that I feel I need to blog about!
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