Friday, January 23, 2009

Closed on Tuesdays

So for day two of Mama's stay in Korea I wanted to take her to the Gyeongbokgong Palace (where we'd gone before). So we got up early and took the subway and hour and half into Seoul. We got there and it felt strange that no one was around the palace. It looked deserted. It had snowed that day, but I didn't think it would close because of the snow! So Matthew went to the ticket booth and came back with the sad news: It's closed on Tuesdays. Tuesdays! We had planned out this day to see the palace and Insa-dong and to come back another day just for the palace was frusterating to think about. But we decided to make the most of it and head off the Insa-dong.



But first we grabbed a picture in front of the palace. The sky was clear and the snow was so pretty. Plus we're pretty awesome looking =)


As we made our way to Insa-dong we posed by this sign. It showed how far different famous cities were from that point. Now Matthew's jacket makes it look as if it wasn't very cold, but by the middle of the day he was wishing he had Mama's jacket! She was definately the only one who stayed warm. =)

This picture was not taken by us, because for some reason we didn't take any pictures of it. But it is Insa-dong none-the-less. We shopped for gifts and different souvenirs. This is a place where you can buy more traditional Korean items. Many of my students tell me how expensive it is, but when we shopped, we were impressed at the bargains we were able to get.

But shopping can only happen so long before hunger sets in... Then we had the task of finding a restaurant that tasted good. We saw an Italian restaurant and went in. As always we ask for a menu... It was expensive. Very expensive. So, we left.

Seeing another Italian restaurant we went toward it. Also expensive. We paused in disappointment, hunger, and cold.


The world seemed against us, but we posed by this No Parking sign to show that our spirits were still up! Even if we weren't eating yet. And then we looked up and saw this sign..


Look at the last line in the sign. The web address reads: ilovesda.org We thought it was really funny and so looked around and saw an SDA building of some sort. Then Matthew noticed a sign, "Vegetarian Buffet"!!! We were very happy but unsure if it was open or how it worked. So we went inside. Matthew, again, saw the sign pointing down toward the buffet so we walked down.

It was a cafeteria looking place and sure enough it was SDA run and it was vegetarian. We asked the lady how much it was. She said 8,000 won. It didn't sound too bad, but Matthew wanted to check out the selection first. While he went to do that I tried to make small talk with the lady. I showed her my SDA backpack and said that we worked for SDA. I just wanted to form a friendly relationship, but then she said, "Okay 7,000 won".
So we decided to eat there =) Mama got to try traditional Korea food without being afraid of octopus or squid being in there and it was pretty good food! They had some veggie meat and thta was especially good.

Afterwards we posed by the sign (the lower one) to express our happiness!
We shopped a little more and then had to head back to meet up with my 7am, level three students. They had wanted to meet and go out to eat. They took us to Ashley's because it is a buffet and has a greater variety for vegetarians. We had fun eating with them.

Felix, Bart, Eric, Me, Ana, Austin, Torres, and Grace.
After eating, they asked us what we wanted to do. Of course we didn't know, so they decided to take us to a No-ray-bong. (Sounds like: Nur-ri-bong). It's a singing room. While we might just say this is karoke, it is not. The whole group, rents a booth and you go in, with just your friends, and then sing along to songs. Personally this is much better, than having everyone look at you! Plus here in Korea most singing rooms don't allow alcohol.


We sang a few songs, but we were not very good. They did have English songs, but trying to sing Elvis is not a good idea.
This is what it looked like. There were videos that went with the different songs, but sometimes they didn't match. It was interesting to watch them though.
Our students are really fun to hang out with. We were excited to experience the singing room because our students talk about it a lot.
And that was the end of day number 2.