My first trip to Seoul

Hi everyone!

Today I went to Seoul.  It was pretty great.  It is much cleaner than where I am, with wider streets, and more modern buildings.  It was a 50 minute train ride, but it went very fast and it is definitely worth doing often.  I went with one of the other new teachers here, so it took us a minute to figure out where we were going (we were looking for the tourist center to get maps and information), but then we found it very easy to get around.  We had to cross a creek to get to the center and it was beautiful.  I snapped a picture on the bridge.



The tourist center was a delightful surprise.  They had English maps of Korea, and Seoul.  They also had information on cooking and language classes.  We were also impressed by the other services they offered for free.  You could make origami of traditional clothes, calligraphy, and ,what we were most excited about but did not do today, we could dress up in traditional dresses and get our picture taken.  We will definitely do that soon.  They also had some beautiful and inexpensive souvenirs and nick-knacks.  There was also a section devoted to K-pop, which I know Margaret will be excited to hear.  We were very excited when we left there, and made sure we remembered the way back.

After a quick lunch we headed to one of the palaces in the city, the Deoksugung.  It was beautiful, even though things haven't really started to bloom.  It will be amazing in the spring and summer.  The best part, it only cost a dollar to wander the grounds and look around.  To see the art gallery, and something else it was only $5.  We plan on going back many times.  There are also four other palaces in Seoul that we have to check out.  There was a pond surrounded by trees, and many buildings with ornately painted ceilings.  We couldn't go inside of the buildings, but we were able to look inside.  It was incredibly peaceful there, especially when you consider that it is in the middle of such a large city.  You could barely hear the traffic or anything, but the birds chirping.  It was very enjoyable.

After that we tried to check out a small market, but there really wasn't much to see there so we headed back to the train.  The market was outside of Seoul, and I felt slightly conspicuous there.  As we got back on the train we received quite a few looks, or stares.  Most days I don't find that the case, that I'm something out of the ordinary.  I actually find that I stare at Westerners more than the Koreans.  I'm just so surprised to see them.  I don't see many in my day to day business, so now when I do I'm like 'Holy crap! There's a westerner', it's kind of funny, though I'm not completely sure why I find it so surprising.  Perhaps, I feel I blend in with the Koreans, who knows.

I really only get to do things on my weekends, so I don't have much to report during the week but I may do one to two posts a weekend depending on what I've got going on.  I'm supposed to attempt hiking for the first time tomorrow morning so you may hear from me again, if not have a great week.