Today involved walking. A lot of walking. It wasn’t a waste though! Getting my 21,000 steps in meant that I got to see a lot of interesting cultural sites here in Korea. The day started off with getting to know how to use the subway system which we will be using a lot during our stay here. Gyeongbokgung Palace was our first destination of the day as we got to see the Royal Guard Changing Ceremony just on time. It was really interesting to see such an ancient ceremony performed so well today, just like it was hundreds of years ago.

Exploring the rest of the palace was very nice as well and I had to constantly keep taking photos because of the beautiful scenery. After spending a few hours exploring the surrounding area of the palace it was time for lunch. Me and a few others found a small restaurant who seemed to have just opened up. To my surprise, the owners actually spoke very good English and we were able to order easily. The food was incredibly delicious. I had a bowl of noodles and dumplings (pork and kimchi) which after not having a full sit down meal for a few days, left me full quickly. 

Most of the rest of the day consisted of walking around Namdaemun Market which had an incredible amount of stores. I was shocked to see basically anything on sale that wasn’t electronics. The sheer variety of stuff available and being sold in such a close together space was amazing. This was made even crazier by the fact that some of the roads in the market are still used by cars so that meant everyone had to get out of the way if someone was driving through.

My day ended with our provided authentic Korean dinner at a restaurant next to the hotel. We got to try out their entire menu which meant I ate a lot of new foods for the first time today. Food such as jellyfish, silverfish, and beef tartare were new for me, but they were good. I’m looking forward to the rest of this experience because if it continues being this fun, I don’t know if I’ll want it to end.