Korea - Day 5 Celebrities for No Good Reason

Since we'd spent Wednesday exploring Korea's current political reality, we decided to look into its past yesterday. After a semi-lazy morning we once again boarded the subway for Gyeongbokgung Palace. On the way there I gave up my seat to an older woman. I was immediately surrounded by a cheerful crowd of middle aged Korean women. They were going en masse to meet friends at Han mountain for the day. At the end there would be twenty of them visiting together. They were very sweet and Tony and I were watched with a great deal of approval until they disembarked. So far we haven't run into any angry people on the subway. I fact, everyone either ignores us or is very happy to see us. Then again, we give up our seats to older people if they let us.

Gyeongbokgung is actually a palace complex. It was originally built in 1395 as the government center for the Joseon dynasty. The Joseons were in control here until 1910. I think that's an amazingly good run, but when I see dates that start with 13s and 14s I tend to expect buildings to be moldering away. I suspect it's an American thing. The current buildings aren't actually 610 years old, though. Most of them were destroyed when the Japanese invaded Korea in 1592 and then rebuilt in 1868.

History out of the way, the complex is just beautiful. The biggest impact for me was turning off a busy, loud Seoul street and looking through the first gate (Gwanghwamun) at the beautiful, two story building backed by mountains that I assumed was the palace. The contrast was breathtaking. It wasn't the palace, just the second gate (Heungryemun), but it was still lovely. We enjoyed roaming the grounds and gardens, occasionally being accosted by happy school children. The National Folk Museum is on the same grounds, so we learned a bit about the prehistory and early history of Korea. We also stopped at one of the Kimchi Information Systems to learn more about kimchi. The Kimchi Information Systems are quite impressive, standing computer kiosks which speak three different languages and tell all anyone needs to know about kimchi. We had a snack of Korean sweets, but were humgry enough to leave the complex at this point.

On our way out not only were we greeted by the school children, but a few were surreptitiously taking pictures of us with their camera phones. Pint-sized paparazzi. I wonder if their parents are upset that they were more impressed by the wandering Americans than their national history. Some of the braver kids actually asked our permission to take pictures. On the way out the first gate, three boys asked if they could take my picture. I said OK and asked if they wanted to stand with me. Instantly the rest of their class appeared, cameras in hand. A few cameras were passed back and forth and I think that one of the boys traded out with his friends. As overwhelming as it was, they were very polite about it and swarmed off again pretty quickly. The high-school aged students were mostly too cool to be impressed by us. A group of three girls did make a point of calling Tony pencil boy. He realized, after hearing one of them call me beaupipul that were actually saying handsome boy. I like pencil boy. After all, he draws and has a pencil with him at all times. Very insightful Korean girls.

I was a bit kimchied out, or at least my digestive tract was feeling that way, so we looked for more westernized food. We found Mr. Pizza. Mr. Pizza claims to be "Made for women," but Tony joined me anyway. Sweet potato pizza is wonderful! Basically it's a stuffed-crust pizza topped with potato, mushrooms (Tony picked these out), bacon, corn, onion, crumbled tortilla chips and cheddar cheese. Instead of being stuffed with cheese, the crust is stuffed with sweet potato. Yummy good! Apparently this is very popular in Korea as well, so I didn't feel too bad for whining about no more kimchi.

Bellies full and happy, we wandered back down to Insadong (I love Insadong) and shopped. I almost bought a $20.00 ink stone, but Tony caught that the price was in yen, not wan, before I did. I did buy lots of lovely things (they take credit cards in Insadong) and Tony got to haggle a little. Satisfied, we returned to our friend the subway orange line for our hour trip home. The subway was busier on the way back, so our celebrity status left us. Once again, we were just oddly complected bodies taking up valuable standing or sitting space just like all the normally complected bodies. Yugi was making diner, so we stopped and bought a cake as a contribution. It was supposed to be a chocolate cream cake. It was a blueberry cream cake. It was still yummy. Yugi's Chopche and seafood pancakes were great. I might be brave enough to try oysters at home. I definately like squid. Anyung hiseo.