Gyeongbukgung Palace!

We finally, finally, finally went to a cultural/historical place in Korea. Today marks seven says since our arrival and most of us still haven't done any cultural activities whatsoever. We decided to meet at nine to go to gyeobgbukgung, but I got there a half hour early. Instead of wandering around alone, I coincidentally bumped into another nsliyian who had arrived early as well, and we walked to the palace to take pictures before the gates opened and before everyone came.

We also walked to the statue of King Sejung, aka the guy who invented the Korean alphabet, 한글. 

It was a pretty gross day outside, but after we picked everyone up at the subway it actually started to clear up! It was still overcast and cold though, but that actually worked out really well. The palace is breathtakingly huge and it's all outdoors, so walking around it in the normal humid, hot Seoul weather would have been miserable. Also, we got there a little earlier than the other tourists so we actually had some quiet time to walk around and take in the place without fighting through the crowds. About a half hour after we got there a ton of Chinese tourists arrived so it got extremely crowded. The only downside of the palace is that there were no maps and no markers explaining the significance of certain buildings. We saw maybe five markers total, and they were in really hard to find places. I guess the lack of modern things makes the palace a bit more authentically cultural, but it's still a little confusing when I'm actually interested in what everything is. 

(Accidentally left my subway lanyard on in a lot of these pics lol, woops) 

After the palace we walked over to the Korean Folk Museum, which is connected to the palace and is free to enter (gyeobgbukgung is three dollars, but since we showed the lady that we were high school students we got in for a dollar fifty. A DOLLAR FIFTY)! The museum was pretty cool, it basically had a bunch of traditional Korean items and it described some of the history surrounding the palace. 

They even let us try on some traditional Korean hats! I'm wearing the women's winter hat, haha. 

Korean wedding exhibit 

Funeral procession thing 

Then afterwards we went out for pho (I know, we should really be eating Korean food for lunch, but everything looks so appealing! We got ice cream afterwards too, and it was the best soft serve ice cream I've ever had. Honestly, if you want to eat well come to Korea. And stay with a host family (they will feed you as much food as you could ever want, and then some). Also, me and two other friends bought five dollar shirts while shopping yesterday and we were triplet-ing today. 

Also, another interesting thing that happened today was that, for the first time, someone pointed out that I was a foreigner when I was in earshot. Honestly, the crowded shopping areas of Seoul have lots of tourists so it's not big deal, but the residential areas are a lot different. Mostly children and old people really care that you are foreign, and no one else looks or talks to you unless they want to practice their English, haha. The first guy in my neighborhood just stated that there was a foreigner on the street to  his friend, and the second girl was an elementary school who said a really sassy "홀. 왜국 사람." (Omg. Foreigner.) to her brother. It was just weird haha. 

Also, another point about Korea is that yes, the driving is interesting (bad?) but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The residential areas are a bit crazy, but the popular places are just like a normal big city. You have to be an 'aggressive pedestrian' here if you want to get anywhere haha, especially if there are no crosswalks. 

Anyways, until next time!