Wednesday: Another Day in Korea

So now we come to Wednesday…and pictures! We started with a Korean history lecture, which was very interesting since I’d never learned much about Korean history before. After lunch, we visited Gyeongbokgung ("Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven") Palace, which  was built in 1395. It was absolutely beautiful, and it took about two hours to tour it. Even so, this tour was only through the 25% of the palace that has been restored! Here are some of the promised pictures:

Gwanghwamun Gate

The King's Throne Room

(that's the closest equivalent I can think of)

Min A and me 

After the tour, we were allowed to explore the city on our own. First, we went out and had frozen yogur (frozen yogurt).

Then we visited Insadong, which is a section of Seoul where there are many shops selling souvenirs and traditional items. We had lots of fun looking in the shops and making our purchases.

Then we went out for chicken, which was sort of like wings, except it was baked. Because there was a long wait for our table, the owner let us use her karaoke room for free. This is a room with comfy couches, a table, and a karaoke machine with hundreds of songs on it. Thankfully, there were some American songs on it. My Korean friends sang us some Korean pop songs, and I sang American ones, including a John Denver song. Yay country music!

Min A, Soo Min, Diana, and me singing karoake

Dinner was delicious, but we were really tired afterwards, and had to go back to the college before curfew (11 PM). So we took a subway and a bus, and back we went!

Good friends, good food, lots of fun. Yep, definitely an awesome day.