Korean Culture Day

Mike writes:
This morning Robin woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 AM...she must have too much on her mind! I woke up at 5 but was able to go back to sleep until 7, which was sweet. Probably not going to get too many more of those days soon! We checked out the weather and were worried about impending rain, so we called Youn Shick, our local tour guide for the day, and asked him to pick us up earlier than we had originally planned. He had to wake up his teenage girl (Naomi) first, who likes sleep even more than me. But then by 9 or so we were on the road.

Our first stop was Changdeokgung Palace, one of the most well preserved and representative palaces in Korea - with the added bonus that it is not currently under construction, unlike many other landmarks we had on our list. We got there a bit early and Youn Shick figured out the lay of the land for us, buying us all tickets for the "general tour" as well as the tour for the Secret Garden, which is inside Changdeokung Palace. We hung out at a little cafe and had excellent Korean sweet tea while waiting for the general tour to start.

At 10:30, a small Korean woman in traditional dress led us around the palace with a little mini-microphone and amplifier for her voice. She told us about how the palace was destroyed by the Japanese in the 1592 invasion, but restored in 1610. It was the main palace for 270 years. It has all kinds of chambers, courtyards, and doors where you have to duck if you don't want to hit your head.

Right after the general tour wrapped up at 11:30, we joined the tour for the Secret Garden, led by a different woman in traditional dress. The wind picked up and you would swear we were about to get drenched...but barely a few drops fell. The tour guide explained all the different stops we were going to take and detailed them on the map...which was good because eventually we figured out the tour would be 2 hours long! We had lunch reservations for 1 pm so we knew we would only be able to do half the tour. Regardless, what we saw was beautiful, simply the essence of man designing buildings and spaces in harmony with nature.

At 12:30 we left Changdeokgung and Youn Shick drove us to Bellagio, an upscale buffet restaurant with pretty much every dish you can imagine available. We got a table and made our way to the salad bar, but when we say "salad bar", we're not just talking about iceberg lettuce. Indeed, I found two different kinds of squid to munch on and some sweet crab meat sushi, which Youn Shick convinced me to try toward the end of the meal...and I thanked him effusively for pushing me. What flavor!

After lunch, Youn Shick took us to the Seoul Museum of History, which has some really nice features: a "bird's eye view" of Seoul, free admission, an audio guide in four languages, a Korean War exhibit, free admission, and folk history features. Did I mention it was free? Perhaps what made this museum the most special, though, is that Youn Shick's own work was on display: English translations of various presentations and exhibit text. Grandma Dolbow would be proud of his work.

We were a bit tired after the Seoul Museum, but it was too early for dinner, so we decided to try the last item on our list: the National Folk Museum. This is just north of Gyeongbukgung Palace, which is under some minor renovation.  Once we arrived, we saw an amazing temple that has a really nice (also free!) museum in the first floor. If you go here, definitely plunk down the 1000 won for the audio tour headsets, because they were easy to use and gave a thorough explanation of each exhibit. The museum closed at 6 so there was no way we were seeing this whole thing, but we picked some spots and learned as much as we could.

After the Folk Museum, it was time for dinner, but we were too wiped to go on an adventure anywhere, so back to Lotte City Hotel basement it was! This time we spotted 25 Katsu near the escalator, which I would probably describe as "fusion" cuisine - it had traditional Korean elements, but the main feature was a big old fried piece of pork. It's a really simple place, too - you just pick the style of pork you want, and they bring you the rest! It was the perfect end to a perfect day. Unless you count the Aleve I'm about to take.