Korea, Day 3
I was still jetlagged and woke up around 3 AM. I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but failed, and at least made some productive use out of it by learning Hangul, the Korean alphabet.
Once you learn how to break down Hangul syllables into components, learning it is surprisingly easy. Each block represents a syllable, consisting of 2-5 letters. Although there are 24 different letters, a lot of them are derived from others so there aren't nearly as many you need to memorize.
To be fair, A and I had gotten bored the previous night and started looking up Hangul study apps and guides, so it wasn't all learned in the insomniac study session, but most of it was. And all that learning Hangul meant was that I could slowly sound out words; I still had no idea what they meant. But it's still useful for, say, matching signs to romanized notes. After staring at unfamiliar characters for a while, I finally got back to sleep.
We had the same complimentary hotel breakfast, and the day's activities were to see Gyeongbukgung palace and Changdeokgung palace, both in the middle of Seoul. Unfortunately, both are largely reconstructions, as the Japanese destroyed them during the occupation.
Maybe it's because they're reconstructions, but I guess I'm not really a palace sort of person. To me, the palaces sort of like watered down temples - pretty neat architecture and decorations, but without some of the interesting religious artifacts. Most of the interiors were either off limits or empty. I think the nearby museum was more interesting to me, though we were only there a short time as we waited for the tour to start.
One interesting thing was that the roof ornaments on the buildings were from Journey to the West - sure, it's well known, but enough to decorate your governmental buildings?
Lunch was at a converted block of traditional buildings. Although the whole place was one restaurant, the inside contained open-air courtyards and alleys between rooms. Lunch itself was a rice-stuffed chicken in soup. We ordered two, plus a seafood green onion pancake, which was enough for the four of us. One of the problems we'd been having was not always being sure how much food to order, as portion size varied from place to place.
We were a bit tired after lunch due to the heat and having just eaten. Instead of walking to Changdeokgung and potentially missing the tour, we taxi'd over. Taxis are pretty cheap, and even though we only went a short distance, it was a little over $3. Divided among 4 people, that's cheaper than the subway for short hops!
The reason we didn't want to miss the tour was because the Secret Garden was only open to guided tours. The tour took us through the private garden reserved for the emperor. Royalty didn't get out to travel much, and instead relaxed by bringing nature to them. There were ponds for boating/fishing, rooms for meditation and parties, and in general, a place to get away.
We had a little time between Changdeokgung and dinner, so we went back to the hotel to shower and rest. Flipping through TV channels, I noticed one of them was casting DoTA. Ahh, Korea, where eSports is big enough to warrant a broadcast channel.
Dinner was at another small random alley full of restaurants that B had read about online. This time it was Gul Bossam Alley, where we got pork and oysters. As we were ordering, B and E fell back to Chinese to talk to the restaurant owners, as it was a better common language than either English or Korean. Possibly because of that commonality, the owners gave us some sort of squid(?) dish for free. Somewhat spicy, but I managed.
Like the previous night, the food was good, but I was worried that the lesson of "go down a random shady looking alley, randomly follow a beckoning shopkeeper into their store, get rewarded with tasty food" might not be the best one for my long term health.
Dessert was at a random coffee shop - green tea shaved ice with red beans. It was giant, big enough for all of us.
Once you learn how to break down Hangul syllables into components, learning it is surprisingly easy. Each block represents a syllable, consisting of 2-5 letters. Although there are 24 different letters, a lot of them are derived from others so there aren't nearly as many you need to memorize.
To be fair, A and I had gotten bored the previous night and started looking up Hangul study apps and guides, so it wasn't all learned in the insomniac study session, but most of it was. And all that learning Hangul meant was that I could slowly sound out words; I still had no idea what they meant. But it's still useful for, say, matching signs to romanized notes. After staring at unfamiliar characters for a while, I finally got back to sleep.
We had the same complimentary hotel breakfast, and the day's activities were to see Gyeongbukgung palace and Changdeokgung palace, both in the middle of Seoul. Unfortunately, both are largely reconstructions, as the Japanese destroyed them during the occupation.
Maybe it's because they're reconstructions, but I guess I'm not really a palace sort of person. To me, the palaces sort of like watered down temples - pretty neat architecture and decorations, but without some of the interesting religious artifacts. Most of the interiors were either off limits or empty. I think the nearby museum was more interesting to me, though we were only there a short time as we waited for the tour to start.
One interesting thing was that the roof ornaments on the buildings were from Journey to the West - sure, it's well known, but enough to decorate your governmental buildings?
Lunch was at a converted block of traditional buildings. Although the whole place was one restaurant, the inside contained open-air courtyards and alleys between rooms. Lunch itself was a rice-stuffed chicken in soup. We ordered two, plus a seafood green onion pancake, which was enough for the four of us. One of the problems we'd been having was not always being sure how much food to order, as portion size varied from place to place.
We were a bit tired after lunch due to the heat and having just eaten. Instead of walking to Changdeokgung and potentially missing the tour, we taxi'd over. Taxis are pretty cheap, and even though we only went a short distance, it was a little over $3. Divided among 4 people, that's cheaper than the subway for short hops!
The reason we didn't want to miss the tour was because the Secret Garden was only open to guided tours. The tour took us through the private garden reserved for the emperor. Royalty didn't get out to travel much, and instead relaxed by bringing nature to them. There were ponds for boating/fishing, rooms for meditation and parties, and in general, a place to get away.
We had a little time between Changdeokgung and dinner, so we went back to the hotel to shower and rest. Flipping through TV channels, I noticed one of them was casting DoTA. Ahh, Korea, where eSports is big enough to warrant a broadcast channel.
Dinner was at another small random alley full of restaurants that B had read about online. This time it was Gul Bossam Alley, where we got pork and oysters. As we were ordering, B and E fell back to Chinese to talk to the restaurant owners, as it was a better common language than either English or Korean. Possibly because of that commonality, the owners gave us some sort of squid(?) dish for free. Somewhat spicy, but I managed.
Like the previous night, the food was good, but I was worried that the lesson of "go down a random shady looking alley, randomly follow a beckoning shopkeeper into their store, get rewarded with tasty food" might not be the best one for my long term health.
Dessert was at a random coffee shop - green tea shaved ice with red beans. It was giant, big enough for all of us.