Thursday June 27

I slept very soundly last night, and woke up around 5:00 feeling very rested. I relaxed in my room, before heading to the lobby around 7:00 to meet others for breakfast. The breakfast buffet was very good, and had mostly recognizable western foods.

We met for the first time as a whole group after breakfast, and headed off to purchase subway cards and begin our subway/walking tour of Seoul. As a teacher, I was a little worried about the logistics of keeping 40 people together on this tour, but I wasn't the one in charge (foreshadowing).

We took the subway about 5 stops to the King Sejong square. He is a beloved king who ruled from 1418-1450, and is credited with the creation of the Korean alphabet (hangeul), and promoting music, science, and technology. Included in his accomplishments in the singijeon arrow machine, where arrows have packets of gunpowder attached to them and up to 100 arrows are fired simultaneously. I think I saw this tested on Mythbusters.

From there it was a short walk to what was once Seoul's principal palace: Gyeongbokgung. We got there in time to see an impressive changing of the guard ceremony. We quickly walked through the palace grounds to the National Folk Museum, and were given 20 minutes(!) to explore.

Before moving on to the next stop, someone decided it might be a good idea to check if everyone was here. After counting and taking attendance there were 4 people missing. And, come to think of it, those 4 hadn't been spotted at the Folk Museum at all, so who knows how long they'd been missing. Nobody in charge seemed overly concerned at the moment, leaving me to be even more certain I was in constant contact with the group.

We walked to Cheongwadae, aka the "Blue House" - Korea's White House. It was heavily guarded, as one would expect.

We then broke nto smaller groups and were given time to find a place to eat lunch. My group found a place that advertised itself as "Good Restaurant." Sounded modest and unassuming, so we went in. We had another kimchi (of course), a green onion pancake similar to what I'd had for dinner the night before, and a seafood noodle soup. It cost us each 6,000 ₩, or less than $6.

By then it was late afternoon, so we headed back to the subway and hotel so we could shower and rest before dinner. It was a pretty hot and humid day, so I also stopped at 7-11 to stock up on water.

At 6:00 we had a formal welcome dinner, sponsored by the Korea Foundation, at the hotel. I lost count of how many courses there were. I remember the kimchi (including stingray and jellyfish), pumpkin soup, fried chicken in sauce (like General Tso's, but not), prawn and smoked duck, mini seafood paste dumplings, a ground beef mini loaf/burger with brown sauce, soup with beef strips, ginseng, abalone, noodles; then finally rice, and fruit slices. It was a lot.

Tomorrow (Friday) we're up and out early for lectures at Korea University, then our teaching session at a local high school.