After waking up, we went downtown to Gwanghwamun Square where there were some different celebrations going on related with the opening of the renovated Gwanghwamun Gate and Independence (from Japan) Day. We walked past a whole bunch of people who were watching some sort of concert (which turned out to be some kind of Christian concert).
We then took the subway to Seoul Station and took the train down to Suwon to see Hwaseong Fortress. Before getting in the station we ran into an interesting gather outside having to do with peace and unification so we stopped and watched for a minute.
Oh yeah, I don’t have any pics from it, but I did take my parents to Yongsan and walked down the red light district (where woman present themselves at windows as they wait for male customers to get *cough* service). My mom really enjoys seeing ‘different’ things and she did enjoy getting to see something extremely out of the ordinary ^^ For those who don’t know where it is, it’s between the new and old Yongsan station on a street which has blinds which partially block the view down the street from the main sidewalk and says in Korean ‘Youth prohibited’ or something like that (can’t remember).
I just want to say that I don’t personally condone going to any websites blocked by the Korean government. It can get frustrating for anyone researching North Korea.
With that in mind, here is a proxy you probably shouldn’t use. Here is an interesting site which has been talked about lately which you shouldn’t look at and I won’t hyperlink since you shouldn’t be clicking it anyway: http://twitter.com/uriminzok. For some reason, the YouTube channel isn’t blocked so I guess it’s okay to go there. There was a lot about it in the news recently. I’ve got to say though, it’s incredibly boring stuff (from what I hear …).
If you haven’t noticed, the format for Misuda has changed and the new name is 쾌적한국 미수다 (KBS1, Saturday at 7:10 PM). My friend, Sergio, is a regular member and I got to cook with him for a segment on the show. Of course I had to get the pink apron ㅋㅋㅋ
My parents came over to Korea for about 8 days so I decided to show them around Seoul and various spots around the country. I started off picking them up from the airport and getting them a rented phone (3,000 a day + 100 per 10 seconds) in case we got separated (which happened once). A nice student from SNU randomly met them in the airport and let them use his phone to call me from the luggage pick-up area so I knew they were inside. After exchanging some US cash we left for downtown Seoul where we would be staying in a up-scale love motel for four days right smack dab in the middle of Seoul near Jongno 3 station on line 5. After settling in we went out for some dinner where we had 삼겹살, 닭갈비, and 해물파전. After returning to the apartment I turned on the TV to show my parents some Korean programming and we found Roller Coaster which turned out extremely funny to me and my parents even though they couldn’t speak Korean. Watching the manikins in situations like humans with real people talking to them and what not turned out more funny than I thought.
Stay tuned for a post on every day of my trip with details on where we went and what we did. Destinations include Gyeongbok Palace, the DMZ (JSA), ancient Shilla relics in beautiful Gyeongju, herbal medicine market in Daegu, a martial arts templestay for a day and night at Golgulsa, and the Korea Folk Village.
For all the 2AM and ZE:A fans out there, catch Misuda this weekend to see Jinwoon from 2AM and Kevin from ZE:A. I had a fun time visiting the set and watching the recording, here’s some pics:
