Palace Day

Yesterday, after "Meet Ike Day", was "Palace Day". We went to Gyeonghuigung Palace and Gyeongbokgung Palace. We were going to go to another one but we ended up walking through neighborhood instead.

As we all know, yesterday started out with a terrific meeting with our son! Then we came back to Casa Ville, where we are staying, dropped off a few things and went to the Hyundai Department Store. It is huge. Thing Harrod's in London huge. It has 14 floors plus some basement floors. We can see how Seoul people are so smartly dressed! I would love to go in there and shop shop shop! But somehow I didn't buy anything, which is odd for us. In fact we didn't buy anything all day yesterday but food and entry tickets. I think we were overwhelmed. Anyway. The store has a food section where they hand out yummy samples. They have fruit all dressed up in arrangements that are simply gorgeous. (I took pictures but I took 300+ pictures yesterday so these are what I ended up with posting, in no particular order or reason.)
(Here I am with a fish filled with black beans we bought on the street. From the same lady we bought these little green pancakes filled with cinnamon chocolate. It was the best thing I have ever had, I'm pretty sure.)

Okay, so after the mega department store, we took the metro to what I am going to call "Seoul Central" or "Palace Land". Luke and I always try to walk a city, just because you see more things. So, after palace two we ended walking through a neighborhood which is supposed to be where the "hip people" live. It was "hip". There where MANY "coffee and waffle" shoppes. Seriously, they where all over the place. Next to another shoppe, across from each other, etc.. We were trying to walk to the end of the river walk which goes through Seoul. But we accidently ended up in the front do to the sweetness of our map and the nameless streets.
Seoul is having some sort of lantern festival and orange festival all wrapped into one. There were animals made out of oranges and people were placing their toddles on top of them, let say an orange cow for instance, walking ten feet away, and ten taking pictures.

(This is Luke) at the orange / lantern fest there was an "opening ceremony" it was one of the most interesting things i have seen and everyone including Amber and I were mesmerized. Let me give you a mental picture. It kicks it off with young ladies playing all kinds of drums (high school band kids would have been comatose) in a crazy mandarin orange forest that has been brought in and is as you guessed "full of Koreans." These drummers played the most interesting three song, lets get the party started set list of all time! Here it is in particular order: 1) the theme song from Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure 2) Hey Mickey Your So Fine and 3) Du Hast Mich by none other than Ramshtine... oh yeah thats right the cover of a lifetime four Korean girls rocking the oddest German techno with lights and smoke and of course oranges.

Still Luke here for a little longer, i do not bolg often but the what i will call "German techno orange light festival" has given me some words this morning. Okay folks, Seoul is the undisputed Snack Capital of the world! They are good snacks and they are cheap too, I love it here. I have no idea what is going on... but i can have snacks when ever i want and if some one asks me a question, i can just take a bite of my delicious tempura octopus and shrug, there is a beautiful lack of expectation the Korean people have of a six foot one, 240 pound, bald, white man. Let us just say it is a very freeing experience a city of ten million people that like you but don't expect anything from you what so ever. I will sign off for now and let Amb take it from here, i will be sure to fill you in on today's adventure tomorrow or should i say today for all of you in the US. Flying to Korea is like taking a Time Machine, Steven Hawkins was wrong after all, time travel is possible the crazy part is you watch 10 movies on the way and wind up in a wonderful snack filled land of no expectations with lights and techno all around you.
Okay, I'm back. We are going to tool around today. I think it might be "Market Day"? Hopefully, we will come back with some good stuff.