Today we started off the day early with some breakfast and a short workout as usual and then taekwondo!! We took a quick subway trip and made our way to our destination where we started our short lesson. There we were taught some simple stretches, punches, kicks, and we each got to break a board ourself with an axe kick! It was a really awesome experience that showed a unique side of Korean culture.
After taekwondo we went to where Seoul City Hall was and got lunch on our own. My group and I got a mix of chicken, pork, and some of us ate octopus! Following lunch was the tour of Seoul City Hall which featured a walkthrough of most of the different floors and we took some pictures of the Mayor’s desk! The City Hall also had a lot of fresh plant walls integrated into their rooms and floors which I thought was really smart as our guide explained it helped with keeping the air fresh, making the place look more lively and giving the building a little more life to it.
Once we were done touring Seoul City Hall professor Yun had a really fun challenge for each of our groups – the group leaders were all given a picture of a different very prominent building somewhere in Seoul (relatively close to where we were) and we had about an hour and a half to figure out where the location is, take our group to it and take a picture and send it to Yun. The winning group received a prize and my group got first! We figured out what the building was relatively quickly and hopped on the subway. We walked right into the subway, right onto a train, and got off after the first stop and there we were. Our group got very lucky with the directions to get there as once we figured out how to get there it was very smooth for us. The building we took a picture at was the Seoul Culture Station, and we ended up getting an additional task to take a picture in front of the Myeongdong Catholic Church, which we did as well.
Our group did a little adventuring afterwards checking out a cool cat cafe and then going back to the hotel where we met with the rest of the group and went out to dinner. It was an amazing day and I am excited for tomorrow!!!