Seoul Day 2

We slept in a bit... (we were still on Vacation, and had been up till 2 or so in the morning filthy stall hopping) and then we set out to explore the area around the hotel. We were right in the downtown core only a few blocks (probably less than 200 M) from City hall. Armed with the shaky knowledge of how to say thank you, we hit the streets.

Local sites of the downtown area... This building is some sort of bell house I beleive, and the statue.. I forget... Some general of great repute... Gimme a break, I cant read a speck of Hangul...

We had noted the night before that there was a palace almost directly across the street from the Hotel, we decided to start our advertures there.

We didn't quite make it that far before they started though...

We immediately noticed that the place was SWARMING with cops... we figured that must have been 30-50 cops marching up and down the main drag. We couldnt tell why.. Though we did remember the stewardess on the flight saying something about some upleasantness in Seoul about protesting the war... These weren't just beat cops either... Riot Shield and billy clubs... by clubs I mean sword legnth two handed beating sticks... It was a bit unnerving at first, but I am of the mind that when the cops are around it is better to feel safe than guilty, so we moved on...

A few more feet down the street D noticed all these hand crafted signs everywhere... They were obvoiusly a display and for sale. D liked them so we spent a few mins browsing and then decided to ask how much they cost. We had armed ourselves with a map and guidebook we picked up at a tourist information center nearby, and asked in probably the worst Korean ever how much they cost.

It was around this point that D noticed that the man was missing a hand.

Shortly after that he pointed it out to me. Sure enough, there where his right hand should be stood a stump, with a hammer fixed to it. I guess hand made was a bit of a misnomer... D picked out one that he liked, offered a bit less than asked, and then Hammerhand signed and wrapped it. The signiture was in Japanese Kanji, and we recongnized the Kanji for Hand and person. We could only assume the other was hammer... He wrapped that package using that hammer with such grace and ability it was rediculous... I never thought one could operate scotch tape with a hammer...

From there we finally made it to the gate of the palace 30 ft away without incident... The name of the palace was Deoksugung, meaning "Place of Virtous Longevity." It is a recent palace, only really being used extensively from the late 1500's but it was beautiful none the less.

	The main gate of Deoksugung palace. What you cant see well in this pic is the poor high school boys wearing traditional costumes and fake beards acting as "guards" at the front gate. Like London, there is a changing ceremony each day, but where it differs from London is that these guards fail to inspire anything but amusement...oh wait a second...
One of the main palace bulidings, nothing really special about it, but I quite liked the skyscrapes standing in the background.
	The main hall and throne room.
The statue of King Sejong and his throne room. This is the fella that created so many invintions it is not funny. On the palace grounds there is a national museaum, with many of his research projects and inventions. I was quite impressed. Not the least of his inventions to list is the Korean written system of Hangul.
I forget the exact nature of this bell, but it was beautiful none the less. Amongst that pile of people to the right we met an actaual English speaker, a Korean fellow that had lived in Kingston Ontario for a while! Small world. None of the highschool girls that were there could speak, but they all copied and parroted us while giggling... Perhaps the cutest was when the alpha female... after remaining silent for a few mins (bear in mind we are about 4 mins into the conversatoin at this point...) gathers up her wits, struts out her head proudly, and calmly and matter of factly sates "Hello." in an intoantion that makes it seem more like and edict than a greeting. We still answer back, sworn supporters of the spread of English across Asia.
	Across from the bell we caught these two trying to take our picture without being noticed. They failed to escape my notice though, and D and I went over to them and happily posed for thier picture of two Gai-jin (or however you say forigner in Korean...). They were really please and happy. Not when we turned the tables on them and asked for their picture though... Hey, turn about is fair play, and they looked forign to us... We did manage to communicate that and got a pic... immeadiately after this they left the park...
Me in front of an old building. D complains that I dont take enough pics with myself in them. Here ya go.
	D has an infatuation for roof corners. I have to admit, they are usually colorful and intricate... one of the finer points of Asian architecture...
D and I in the inner garden of the palace, (right behind the snack bar).

Once we are finished at that palace, we head up the main drag to the next palace. On the way we stop for a few lunches, little deep fried bread balls, and at some fast food place called "Hardees". It is D's favorite, and I must admit, the frisco burger is quite a piece of work...

Oooh, so close.

We head up the main street and arrive at another palace, this one named Gyeongbokgung. I think it means "Random string of Glottal sounds."

The long approach and outer gate and wall of Gyeongbokgung. Like most things of interest in Seoul, it is hard to approach on foot for a good photo angle... thank goodness for the zoom lense...
I am not sure what those monsters guarding the gate are called, but they are kinda cool looking and are "fire eaters"; wards to protect the palace from fire... one of the top fears in Asia...
	We managed to negotiate with the oldest man in Korea to take our picture with D's camera. It took several runs to explain how the device worked and that our souls would remain in tact despite what he may have heard in recent news... Despite this, the pic turned out ok...
The first inner courtyard and sencond gate. Again protected by high school boys in dress uniforms to impress the tourists.
Once you weave your way past all the inner bulidings and redsidences of princes and concubines, you open up onto a wonderful park, that contains the Korean Folk Museaum, shown here.
	A bit to the west, you find this lovely island pagoda. An interesting thing happened on the way to this spot. This little boy bounds up to us, probably 8-10 years old. "Hello" We respond. "Where are you from?" A bit surprised, we respond again. "How long have you been in Korea?" At this point we are shocked and awed as this boy proceeds to ask us about our vacation, our jobs, and such, effortlessly and in almost perfect English. When we asked his name I half expectd "Billy" due to his fluency, and so was suprised when his name was "Juk Lee Kim." or something like that. We just called him Mr. Kim. Fantastic English in this country and friendly folks too...
This is probably my favorite part of this palace. I couldnt tell you why, but as soon as I saw this place on the web, it became my number 1 spot to visit... This hall is built on a concrete platfrom jutting into a small "lake" or Moat. Two tiny islands support a few trees each, and that is all. For some reason I just loved it to death.
After this palace we went to Changgyeonggung palace. Yes that is spelt correctly. By this point we had been on our feet for several hours, and all the palaces were starting to look the same... This one had no outstanding features like the first two, just a large grounds with many buildings... We decided to move on but on the way out spotted a few rabbits playing in the field... We spent a few minutes hunting them out to try and get a pic. Couldn't tell ya why. Just rabbits. This pic serves as a reminder of how silly one can be when left unchecked. Also the rabbit is cute.

We were a bit tuckerd out of of temples, so we decided to change gears. We had walked a long way, and decided to visit the other of the big markes, Dongdeamun, or east gate market. A quick subway ride and we were there.

There it is. National Treasure #2. The Dongdeamun east gate. Again surrouded by a protective traffic circle to make approach on foot impossible. At least it wasn't under construction.
	The streets were busy and at first it seemed a bit of a dissapointment, just like any other busy shopping district in any other big city. We stopped for a post lunch, pre dinner meal of BBQ chicken and with renewed energy began to dig...
We eventually pressed into smaller areas filled with fresh vegetables, meat and live seafood. Ever seen live squid and cuttlefish and manta rays for sale? The squid is actually one of the uglier animals I have ever come across... though delicious... We found fruit here was really cheap... Huge 3 or 4 quart packages of strawberries for 3 dollars...
	Finally our digging paid off and we found our way to underground cities filled with filthy stalls pedaling all sort of questionable foodstuffs... We didn't stop to eat here, it was really crowded... we headed back to the hotel area for dinner.
We stopped at a small resturant, and managed to get in just before closing... (in fact we kept them open a bit...) and the meal was served korean style...all dishes at once... fresh Garubi (stone grilled beef) with salads, soup, kimchee (My fav... spicy pickled cabbage) garlic cloves, shizo leaves, and even whole baby crabs.. (they sure are crunchy!) We also had a kimchee nabe to make the meal perfect. We made it pretty clear that we had no idea what we were doing, but the staff was really kind and showed us how to cook the meat (by which I mean cooked it for us) and after laughing a bit showed us how to assemble the meat into tiny burritos wrapped in the shizo leaves with sauces and such... yum yum.
	This was another choice of resturant we had, but for some reason decided not to eat there... After that, a quick stop at the 7-11, then back to the hotel. Tomorrow is an early day...

Day 3