It feels like this has been an endless day. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane over watched a bunch of movies. And in case anyone is curious…
Anaconda 8/10- stupid but good
Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter 9/10- comedy special
Swapped 5/10- good villain annoying heroes
The Sea Beast: 10/10- brilliant highly recommend
Anyway, when we landed it was 4 in the morning and by the time we made it to the hotel it was 6:30ish. I went to go freshen up and then go to breakfast. The toilet is one of the fancy ones and I don’t know how it works and I am scared to try it, but it looks cool. Then we went to breakfast I beilive it is included with our hotel stay. I tried lychee for the first time I like it much squishier than I thought it was going to be. But the highlight was the orange juice like it is really good no pulp no over sourness, no over sweetness, I think I got 3 cups of it.
Then we traded money and headed on out. To the Gyeongbuk palace! It is a beautiful place, our tour guide Esther (don’t know how she spells it) explained the history behind it as we walked through. A lot of it was getting photos and videos for the final and we did some group recording. We also witness a changing of the guard, but I am small so I couldn’t see. I ended getting through the crowd but was blocked by the kid’s row. There are some tall kids around, so they still blocked some of the view. But overall, it was a cool thing to watch, and I liked the drum it was so loud.
From there we walked to the shopping district. Along the way seeing this LEGO event which was really cool, and this river flowing right through the middle of the city. The city set up this outdoor library by it, and it looked so nice to just sit there and read! At the shopping district we had about an hour to explore and get food. So, we went in this huge group and wandered for like 30 minutes because we couldn’t find a restaurant. We then just picked and went into this place and tried to ask how long the wait for food would be there but then they sat us down at a table and gave us water and kimchi, so we were locked in, so just smile and wave and order food. I got dumplings and they were huge! HUGE, and I tried some of V’s spicy noodles which were not that spicy as she said they were sweet.
From there we went to this neighbor that was half shopping and tourism and half residents, so we had to be very quiet and at this point my feet were really hurting so I wanted to sit down but got sidetracked ay the shops. They had such great stuff all like tourist things, but I thought they were awesome. Didn’t buy anything and thought no one else did either only to come back to the group to see that everyone had found this perfume shop. So now at this point I had FOMO for not buying anything. Anyway Dr. Yun and Chris stopped at a store and got all of us ice cream, big shout of thanks! I got a diet coke because I can’t eat dairy, but that has caffeine in it. And it was a regular coke, but it comes in a smaller bottle than the America coke, so I am calling it a diet coke.
From there we went to the street vendors market area. That place was so cool. I have never seen anything like it. Didn’t buy any food though because I was still full of the dumplings early. But Dr. Yun got this live octopus for the group to eat. It was alive when they chopped it up, so it still was moving in the bowl when you go to eat it. I didn’t have any, but a lot of people did they said it was very chewy and one guy it suctioned onto his tongue. Went to olive young after that and they have these stations to find out your personal hair care and stuff like that. Apparently, I have moderate hair loss. That is not good news. I finally bought something as well, but it wasn’t for my hair it was a makeup brush and some gifts for my cousins. Then we went home.
And to get home we had to navigate the subway which is like the New York subway, but everything is in Korean, and my beloved google maps which I have a love hate relationship with doesn’t work! We did it and made it home took like a while though. And went to sleep, slept through whole night.