Seoul in photos

Here it is.  The Korea entry.  I am going to just caption the photos. But before that, just a few things.  I went with some fellow Iiyama friends, Crystal, Carolyn and Megan.  We went from December 22 to December 26.  Yes, this can be added to the interesting Christmases away from home list for me.  Christmas in Korea!  Seoul is really really really cold, something I was unaware of until going there.  I mean, Iiyama is cold and snowy, but I think it was in the negatives (C) the whole time we were in Seoul.  Day, night, whenever, below zero.

Ok, moving on

Korean money!  It is called Won.  And the exchange rate from Yen to Won is insane.  I am holding approximately 500,000 won!  two for me, won for you.  mwahaha, sorry.

A BURRITO!  I know, it is not Korean food.  But we had just gotten there and were wandering in the area of our hostel when we stumbled upon some amazing burritos, so that is what we had for dinner.  And I do not regret it!

Dunkin Donuts!  Haha, at his point, you are wondering (besides the money) if I even went to Korea or if I just came back to America for a visit!  This is Korea and it is exciting because there are no Dunkin Donuts in Japan.  NONE!  No delicious bagels, no amazing donuts or coffees or anything.  Also, this one was conveniently located in the same building where our hostel was.  So we ate there for breakfast every day.

Japan has Starbucks, too, but the sign is cool.er when it's written in Korean!  Also Korea had the peppermint mocha which Japan did not have since Japanese people do not particularly like mint.

This is me at Jongmyo Shrine.  It was pretty.  We ended up taking a tour in Japanese because we got there at 12:15 and the English tour was not until 2:30, but there was a Japanese one at 12:30.  We gave the guide and other people in our a group a bit of a shock.  I hope they have changed their views of foreigners at least a little bit...

Lunch!  One of my favorite Korean foods: binbinbap.  It is rice with delicious mixed in.  There are a lot of varieties.  This one was a colder one with lettuce in it and not too spicy.  This lunch was also a fun experience because we don't speak Korean and no one at the small restaurant spoke English.  We ordered by pointing to the pictures of food on the walls and then holding up fingers to tell how many we wanted.

Continuing with our historic day, we went to a palace.

They did a changing of the guard ceremony.  This is the band.

Pagoda.

More inside the palace.  The water was frozen completely solid.

They had statues of the 12 zodiac signs.  I am a tiger so...

It tried to snow.  It was so cute (I write this sitting at school in a blizzard...we are supposed to get 60cm today, they canceled meetings and club activities after school...that is saying something)

One of the mysteries of Korea.  Don't flush your toilet paper.  When I was in Cairo, it was the same situation, but I was not nearly as surprised in Cairo as I was in Seoul.  I guess the sewage system can't handle it and the pipes are not as wide, but...interesting interesting interesting.

On Christmas Eve, we met up with my friend who lives in Seoul.  (Bora for those of you who went to OHS).  Anyway, she was nice enough to invite us over and we made graham cracker houses!  It was fun.

For Christmas Eve dinner we went to an all you can eat buffet that had STUFFING and TURKEY and MASHED POTATOES and other amazing things that I have not eaten in a long long time.  YUM!

As we were leaving after dinner, there were dancing batteries.

what a job!

see, I didn't go alone!  starting with me and going clockwise, Carolyn, Megan, Crystal.  Yes, I am wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt that says ALLIGATOR on it.  It is one of the best things I purchased in Korea.  Under the alligator it says "are there many crocodiles around?"  tee hee

This is what we were eating.  Binbinbap specialty restaurant that we found in the guide book.  YUM #1

YUM #2.  More binbinbap.  This one comes in a hot stone bowl, so the rice gets crunchy and delicious as it cooks a bit longer on the stone.

Shopping!!!  Lots of people.

I painted my nails for Christmas!  I am sure you wanted to know.

N Seoul tower.  we had to stand in line.  When we got there, it looked like this.

Then the sun went down and we were still at the bottom.  Guess Christmas was not a good day to go.  So many lovey lovey couples there!

One gondola ride later, we were at the base of the tower.  And guess what, there was a line to go all the way up so we decided we were satisfied with the view we had.

earmuffs!  They are sorta the center of attention, but as I said, it was cold.  I am glad I spent the whole 2000 won (about $2) to buy them.  

Christmas dinner!  MEAT.  I guess it is called Korean BBQ.  In Japan, it is called yakiniku which means grilled meat.

One more binbinbap to share.  I can't seem to remember where this fits into the timeline, so it gets to be at the end.  Unfortunately this one was a HUGE disappointment.  Why?  see next picture.

what's that in there?!?!  OCTOPUS!  EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW  S. Korea being essentially an island country (I don't think they can just truck things through N, Korea) has a lot of seafood.  They like octopus as much as Japan does.

30 minutes later, my binbinbap was octo-free, but it still sorta ruined the meal for me.

Welcome back to Japan!  We survived!

 THE END