Today was a lot of fun, and I gained greater confidence in my navigational abilities. Ross and I dumped stuff at our respective apartments, and then we got a Korean omelet thingo for breakfast. We wanted to investigate what was south of the river (the Han river flows east-west through the middle of the city), and Allen, our tour guide, just started naming things that he knew of south of the river. We decided on going to Seoul Grand Park, which may or may not be in the city limits, but certainly has a more nature-y feel than Yongsan (which is the district in which I reside). Ross and I were in charge of navigating the Subway, which it turned out was pretty easy, and we got there without incident. On the way in, there were vendors selling various foodstuffs. Most of it was more or less normal as far as I was concerned, but every vendor also sold what Allen told us was silkworm larva. We reacted with a mixture of disgust and intrigue - more on this later.
We wound up going to the zoo, which was a good break from our intensive information-processing. The funniest to me were the Canadian geese :) We had fun, and I got some good pictures, which I'll post on FB as soon as I charge the camera batteries and figure out how to upload the pics. The zoo was cheap - I think it was 3,000 won (~$3) for an adult ticket.
On the walk back to the subway, we happened upon a hobby museum that was free, so we went in and saw some really cool models of various military vehicles side by side with C3PO and who I think is the main character in Dragonball Z. It was a comical juxtaposition. As we continued on toward the subway, I experienced what was the best and worst part of my day.
Ross decided he had to try the silkworm larvae. Since he did it, I couldn't chicken out. So we both at silkworm larva. I only had one, and that almost made me throw up. It was without a doubt the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. But I ATE SILKWORM LARVA! That will probably be the only thing I remember about today a few years from now.
We didn't wind up getting lunch until about 3:30, after which we walked over to meet everyone for dinner at 5 :) Ross and Allen still managed to eat dinner, but I just hung out and chatted.
This actually caused something of a problem - apparently Koreans don't like you disrupting the natural order in restaurants. It took a while for them to let us order one fewer dish than we had people, and they weren't particularly happy about it. It also took us a while to get them to split the check, but that was a communication issue.
I had a fun time getting back to my apartment. I decided to walk with people, instead of taking the route I knew, and we wound up wandering around back alleys and hills for a while. We were never really lost, but I had a difficult time communicating the route I knew to get to my apartment, and our veteran hadn't been there. It was kind of fun, although my companions were slowed in their quest to attain caffeination.
Going to church here for the first time tomorrow :) Tired now.
peace,
Bennett
No comments:
Post a Comment