This morning was to be the first of our sightseeing adventures as well as our first day without Stacey to translate everything (although Chris' Korean is pretty good as far as I am concerned.) We are getting more accustomed to the time shift but we still have no problems whatsoever waking up early. The plan was to go to one of the historical palaces in Seoul but the one that Chris had in mind to visit unfortunately is closed on Mondays. Fortunately another palace, Gyeongbokgung, was open so we took the T in that direction. Coming out of the station the view was pretty incredible -- all of a sudden the palace hits you, smack dab in the middle of the city, with office buildings and construction sites as a backdrop.
The palace was first constructed in 1395 and has been rebuilt and refurbished numerous times; large parts of the complex were destroyed after the Japanese invasion in 1592 and during the Korean War. The kings of the Joseon dynasty were amazingly paranoid: the royal bedchamber was kept completely empty and furniture and decorations were brought in as the king needed it, only to be replaced when he was done, to prevent assassins from being able to hide in or behind large pieces of furniture.
The grounds are quite extensive and beautiful, but it seems that the king didn't get much use out of them; he was constantly at work taking care of matters of state and only got 4 hours of sleep a night. To make matters worse, a group of scribes known as chroniclers were constantly following him around like paparazzi recording his every move so that future generations of rulers might benefit from his successes and learn from his mistakes. The guide told us the following story: "one day the king went hunting and fell off his horse. The king was very embarrassed and asked the chroniclers not to mention his blunder. The chronicles pertaining to the event read 'the king went hunting. He fell off his horse. He then asked the chroniclers not to mention that he fell off his horse'". All the Stress took its toll, and the average lifespan of a Korean king was only about 45 years!
All the walking around the palace grounds left us quite hungry, so we hopped back on the metro and headed for Itaewon, the main expat district. We were just looking for cheap Korean food, so really Itaewon might not have been the best choice for this option--we ended up finding an Italian place. In addition to all the American chain stores and restaurants there are also a number of good-looking ethnic restaurants offering Indian and Middle Eastern fare; I am curious to see how the Korean-adapted versions of these cuisines are different from the version that we get in the US. Itaewon is also home to a US army base, so there are lots of smaller shops, clothing stores, tailors, and custom engraving shops. Chris heard from Stephen Petraeus that all the us soldiers stationed in Korea like to have their uniforms fitted and tailored here. I was able to find a fake Korean national team soccer jersey for a third of the price of a legit one in one of these shops. And speaking of soccer...
Our next stop (on the same metro line as Itaewon) was the Seoul world cup stadium built for the 2002 world cup hosted by Korea and Japan! The venue is kind of ridiculous; in addition to a soccer stadium it also has a mall, a movie theater, a spa, and a sports club containing a gym, pool, and virtual golf facilities. We tried to go see a movie but were thwarted by the language barrier and the high price of 3d films. The stadium also has a world cup museum, which was pretty cool, and also let you actually go down to the edge of the field and see the inside of the stadium. Our plan is to come back a week from Saturday and attend a game between two K-League teams: FC Seoul and Incheon United.
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Amusing Photo of the day!
World Cup 98 Group round: Mexico beat Korea 3-1 =P
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