Belated final day in Korea

I realized after reading Megan's blog about her trip to Portugal with Guy, Alana and Steve that we neglected to describe our last day in Korea. In a way, we tied up loose ends. There were a few places that we wanted to revisit and we had hopes of seeing a play, Nanta, that is Stomp with cooking. We had evening plans for dinner, drinks and nam-ba with the Cootes, but the day was all ours. So, we boarded the trusty subway and headed for the city. Our first stop was the toy market in Dongdaemun. Tony has a great need to buy Gundam figures and it seemed to be the place to look. We wandered alleys, getting half-lost and enjoying the mysterious twists, turns and smells. Eventually we did find the appropriate shop and Tony purchased toys to his heart's content. We then made our happy way to Namdaemun (the market we had failed to find earlier in the week).

There are some mall type structures in Namdaemun. We avoided these and somehow found ourselves in the costume jewelry and housewares market. The housewares market extends underground. it's an overwhelming place for two reasons: 1. The overwhelming amount of stuff. Especially fragile stuff that a misplaced elbow could send crashing to floor and 2. The overwhelming amount of humanity squeezed into the little tiny aisles. You have no choice but to be jostled and no option but to jostle back if you want to escape. Also, it was very very warm. Not my favorite experience, but it was a good experience to have. I may be less likely to panic in dressing rooms at clothing stores now. Tony was disappointed in Namdaemun because he was on a quest for amethysts. There were amethysts in Itaewan (which we did buy) and in Insadong, but he wanted to pick up one for a friend. Sadly, Namdemun had lots of jade and lots of fake whatever-gem-you-want, but no amethysts. Tony was starting to feel a bit unwell, so we decided to head to Nanta.

We had 2 options to get to Nanta: the friendly subway or a cab. We chose the cab, being very careful to select the silver /grey one (these start charging at 1600 wan) as opposed to the black one (these are high status cabs and start charging at 4000 wan). We wandered through a cobblestoned neighborhood and got to the nanta theatre, ready to buy our 25000 wan seats. Except that all of the seat were sold out with the exception of the 50000 and 60000 wan seats. So we changed our plan. We went a big bookstore near the palace and then returned home. Tony was visibly unwell at this point, so Nanta did us a favor by being too expensive. Tony slept for a couple of hours and was refreshed for the evening of merriment. The plan was to keep us up extra late so that we'd sleep on the plane.

Refreshed and feeling healthy again, the six of us walked a few blocks and down a level to a charming little French restaurant. Yes, I know, heresy to eat non-Korean food on our last night. However, most of the Cootes have lived in Seoul for 18 months and Yugi has lived there her whole life. They like a break from Korean food. It was excellent. The company and conversation were too. Afterwards we wandered to a local bar for drinks and bar food. Sometimes it takes lubrication to sing in semipublic. We had a wonderful pineapple drink and lots of yummy Korean versions of beernuts and bar food. Then it was time to sing. We sang a lot. We probably sang quite loudly, but we had our own little room so no-one else had to hear us. We sang enthusiastically. We sang until my throat hurt. Did we sing well? Occasionally. Did it matter? Not really. We retired happy and sleepy except for those who chose to go to what I like to call the "naked all night sauna". You can get naked haircuts there, too. Tony declined the invitation. I wasn't allowed. Sadly, we did not get to say goodbye to Jeff and Ian the next morning.