Today marks the first official day of our trip to South Korea! Today was a long day full of walking around the city and exploring different landmarks in the city. Our tour guide, Esther, took us around a couple of different places.
First, we went to the Gyeongbok Palace, which is from the Joseon dynasty. It was really cool to walk around the palace grounds and hear about its history. Esther told us about things like the fact that they don’t have any bushes around, so assassins can’t hide in them. We also learned about some of the symbolism behind the colors of the buildings and the animals featured on the roofs. I found it particularly interesting how close the downtown area of Seoul is to the palace. In any other old buildings I’ve visited, they have all been very far away from any cities or metropolitan areas, so it was really cool to see how it was integrated into the modern landscape. This was actually true in a couple of other places that we visited, like Bukchon Hanok Village. This village was a residential area that had some traditional style buildings that are still in use by people. The area actually closes at 5 pm so that it isn’t too loud for residents.
We also spent some time walking around markets for lunch and dinner. I somehow managed to conquer my first meal at a restaurant in Korea, though it was a little confusing. There were so many different places in the market to eat, and it was a really hard choice to pick, but we ended up picking a little place that was underneath one of the stores on the street. Because none of us can speak any Korean other than the words “hello” and “thank you”, we had to order our food by pointing to the pictures on the menu. Our food came really quickly, which I was glad about, because at this point I was starving and ready to eat. My food was beef noodle soup, and some others at my table got dumplings and spicy noodles.
Later that evening, we went to Gwangjang market, which was so cool and really busy. In the market, there were so many different things to see and smell. Every vendor was selling something different, from fruit all the way to any kind of meat you can think of. We all stopped at one vendor, which was selling some octopus, which we all tried. It was still wriggling around when I ate some, which was kind of freaky because it suctioned to your tongue if you didn’t eat it quick enough.
Today was a really long day, and I was completely exhausted by it, but from all the experiences in just one day, I would say it was completely worth it. Until next time!