Yesterday (May 6) was yet another long day (notice a pattern?). I tried writing this last night, but I was falling asleep in the process.

City Hall

Our first stop was City Hall. We got there early, before our scheduled tour, so we were allowed to explore on our own. Ben, Jake, Manav, Madeleine, Kali, and I explored the basement (or ground floor? I can’t really remember). Either way, it was super cool. We first saw a Hechi LEGO display (and I’m now realizing I’m blocking part of the display, it says Seoul My Soul). That was one of the first reminders of home (my dad loves LEGO). Pretty much at the same time we saw the Hechi display, we saw walls of plants. That was the second reminder of home (we have lots of gardens in our backyard, and a fair amount of house plants, so I’m accustomed to being surrounded by plants).

We also got to explore some exhibits of Seoul with fun colored lights. The floor was a screen that showed water, and it reacted when you stepped on it to show ripples. I didn’t get a good video of it though, but it was really cool. We also got some pictures taken.

After our free time around City Hall, we went on a guided tour. It was neat to see how City Hall is very much a public space where anyone can come to get coffee, relax, read, etc.. We also got to see more walls of plants. We learned that they were watered by a timer system. There was also a theater that could be used for almost anything. Then we saw some more gardens, but weren’t allowed in them. We could only take pictures from inside the building. Then we got to see some displays about the history of Seoul and Korea. I also spotted an old musical instrument which I thought was cool. It was interesting to see the resemblance between the “f-holes” of a viola/violin/cello and the holes in this instrument. This instrument was from Mongolia, and there was no date listed, so I’m not sure if the resemblance is due to influence from European instruments, or if it was a pure coincidence. We also got to sit at a fancy desk, which is what the featured photo of this post is.

After we finished at city hall, we left to go to the area of our next field trip. There, we got some lunch.

Lunch

Dr. Yun was disappointed in us during lunch. I’m fairly certain he was very, very embarrassed to know us at that moment.

Once we got to where we were going, Dr. Yun set us free for a little bit to get some lunch. He recommended this one restaurant across the street. So, Ben, Manav, Jake, Chris, Victor, and I went there. We had no idea what the restaurant was, but since Dr. Yun recommended it we knew it had to be good. Turns out, it was a shabu-shabu restaurant. It’s similar to hot-pot. None of the staff spoke much, if any English, so most of our help was from Dr. Yun, who had also come to the restaurant with a bunch of people. However, they came in after us, and we had already sat down, so the help we got was limited. But Dr. Yun looked at our bowls and was quite clearly very disappointed. Even though we apparently did almost everything incorrectly, the food was really good. Unfortunately, I was getting full and slowed down my eating, so I didn’t have time to eat the rice soup at the end. I got one bite before we had to leave, and it made me very mad that I didn’t have time to eat more. It was so delicious.

Seoul Water Purification Facility

I’d love to talk a lot about this trip, but unfortunately it is a matter of national security, and I’m a little unclear what I can and cannot share. Therefore, this section will be short and vague. It was neat to see the filtration process and how each step contributed, and how the process was monitored. We also got some pens as souvenirs. We weren’t really able to get any pictures. Since I don’t know if I can get any more specific or share anything else, that will be all for this section.

Program Dinner and Shopping in Myeong-Dong

After leaving the water facility, we went back to the hotel for maybe 10 minutes before having to leave again to go to dinner. The elevators take forever (there’s 21 floors and 2 elevators), so I worried I wouldn’t have time to change out of my business clothes, but I did quickly change my shoes (I made the mistake of wearing flats all day, so my feet were on the verge of giving up. I was close to just crawling around because my feet hurt so much). We all went to the official program welcome dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant, and thankfully the staff cooked for us, and Dr. Yun showed us how we were supposed to eat the food. It was a lot of food, but it was pretty good. I honestly was not the biggest fan of the pork, which was the meat we were served, because it was very fatty and I do not like fatty meats. I only had a little bit of that.

After dinner, Sophie, Kali and I decided to go shopping in Myeong-dong. We went to Lotte department store, Olive Young, Nyunyu, Rockfish, another store that I don’t remember the name of, and a place that sold salt bread. We passed by it and it smelled so good, so Sophie and I decided we wanted to buy some. I tried regular salt bread and chocolate salt bread, and both were so good. I might have to go back (if I can find that place again) or find another place that sells salt bread and get some more. I bought some other things at some of the stores we went to, and since some of it was gifts, I won’t elaborate more.

We’re currently on a coach bus on our way to our adventures of today. Maybe tonight I’ll try to get back to the hotel early and get my post about today done early. But we’re also doing more shopping tonight at a place that, according to Dr. Yun, is super duper cheap and has everything we could possibly need or want to buy. It’s hard to say how late I’ll be out tonight.