Today we took the City Bus Tour around Seoul. It was fun doing the touristy thing with Tess. We stopped at the Korean War Memorial first. I had never been and it was very interesting. Large, aggressive monuments and statues told a story of pain, sadness, and war. There were tanks, planes, helicopters and rockets all over the grounds. You were able to climb up and take pictures in many of the cockpits. We walked around, took lots of pictures, and then looked at the hall of names.
After some time we picked up the bus and went to the traditional Namsangol village near the Chongmuro station at the base of Namsan Mountain. We meandered through the village watching old men weave wicker shoes and baskets. Children were playing Yut and running hoops around the squares. We even got the chance to get dressed up in Hanboks and take pictures with huge hairpieces. It was wild.
We rode the bus up Namsan, terrified that it was going to tip over and roll down the incredibly steep and narrow roads. Then we rode back down the hill and hopped off near the Blue House, where the Korean President lives. We went to a great little dumpling house and gorged on dumpling soup and cold buckwheat noodles in kichi sauce. It was wonderful.
We returned to Hwajung just in time to see Nick bring in his friend from the airport. Now we were really excited - TWO amazing friends visiting us in Korea! We decided to give them the experience of eating San-Okji, the wiggly octopus that we had months ago. We went to the traditional seafood restaurant and ate a mountain of raw fish and poked at the wiggling limbs.
After playing with our food and having it play back, we picked up some fried chicken to make sure our hunger was truly satisfied. Tomorrow we have to go back to work, but we look forward to spending the evenings with our friends! We will be going to the Tuna House tomorrow, and we are very excited to show our friends more of our favorite places in Seoul.
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