Date Night (and lots of pictures!)

Kraig found out about a jazz concert happening downtown on tuesday, so we decided we'd make a day of it. I met him after work around 3, just in time to see the changing of the guards at the temple. We then hit up the Art Museum, Seoul History Museum, and the Cheonggyencheon River.

I think the temple has been rebuilt since the Korean War, but they still do the changing of guards. We were on our way to the hidden art museum, when we were met by the music and march of the guards:


So colorful:


The temple is located in the middle of City Hall. Across the street is the G20 Summit buidling:


Doing some marching and flag waving:


We were sweating just standing there and watching, I can't imagine how they must have felt!


Head Honcho:


Hot.


We got to pose with him!


Our favorite:


After the show, we headed down the cute brick walkway to the Art Museum.
Much better in the shade!


Don't look too long, it'll hurt your eyes! The little sign next to it said the artist was inspired by kimchi jars covered in snow? I guess you have to be Korean to understand that one.


Being the cheapees that we are, we only looked at the free exhibit in the art museum, photography. It was cute. It also was small. After that museum we headed over to the Seoul History Museum. We passed by a part of the American Embassy, the Salvation Army Headquarters, and other cool buildings.


I liked it.


Inside the museum, which had 4 or so floors, but all the exhibits were on the 3rd floor only. Also, all the exhibits were in Korean with no English translations.


Definitely the coolest part of the museum, the interactive 3D map of Seoul. We saw one of these at Dream Forest, but this was 3-4 times bigger and more awesome! There were screens that you could use to look up different places, like train stations, schools, main attractions, and then a spot light would find it for you. Even though that was also only in Korea, we managed to find the station close to us and the campus. About halfway down on the left side, there's a big building, that's our station. And if you can spot the soccer field, that's the campus.


On our way to dinner, we passed by this guy. I'm not sure who he is, but if there's a statue of him, he must be important. Behind him is another statue of an ancient king sitting on his thrown with the mountains behind him. The city and road kinda just stops after him, it's rather cool.


For dinner, we went Mexican. It was kinda like Chipotle; Kraig got a burrito and I got a vegetarian tostado.


Happy to have the option of vegetarian!


The jazz concert took place on the lower floor of one of the major cell phone company's building. We got there a little early, so we played with all the cool gadgets. This one guesses your age, but we think it's based on Asian faces. It was a little off for him.


The place is so technology-advanced, it was like we walked into the future! Like, there was a touch screen computer monitor that you could just set the camera on and it would automatically upload the pictures without having to plug in or turn on the camera. Or this other do-bob you could write a short message on that projects it onto the wall and is saved so later someone could come back and check for the message. It's supposed to be for lovers to leave short love notes. Kraig wrote a short one saying "kraig <3 laura" on monday, and on tuesday he just typed his name in and it popped up! I didn't get a picture, but on Monday Chomi from his internship took one and put it on fb.

While we waited for the jazz concert, I played the Korean version of Bejewelled.


Our tickets:


Although I took a short nap in the beginning, the concert was pretty good.


The Cheonggyecheon is a 5km man made river 15 ft below the street in downtown Seoul. At night it is very pretty and romantic.


We didn't walk along it for long (I was so sleepy!) but we plan to walk the length of it one of these nights.


Almost caught up! You can look forward to seeing pictures from one of Kraig's days at work and a post about another intern field trip. Right now I need to quiet my growling stomach!

Leave me some love!

Sunday Feast

I'm glad Koreans like yogurt, because I love it! I just had a berry mix yogurt. The package has two compartments, one for plain yogurt and a smaller one for berry jam. You can mix the two to your likings. Such a yummy snack!

Anyway, on sunday we spent the whole day out and about! We met up with Soomin, another IU student doing the internship. He's from Korea, but went to high school and undergrad in Bloomington. He took us to Shinsa, the Manhattan of Seoul. We ate at a charming little Italian restaurant Naso & Goya (but on everything it was printed naso& goya, I wanted to fix it!) Soomin and I both got penne with vegetable sauce and Kraig ordered salad with mozzarella and tomato rockets. I think he mostly got it because he wanted to know what a tomato rocket is. What is it?


Just a tomato slice, which was kinda disappointing, but Kraig still enjoyed it. Like most fancy restaurants, we thought they could have added some more food to our plates for the price. But we didn't complain because Soomin treated us (how generous!)

After the meal, hard guy to get a smile out of:


After lunch, we headed over to the Hyundai Mall via cab. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but whole monopoly! LG, Samsung, Lotte, and Samsung own just about everything over here. Even the couches in our favorite lounge are made by LG and the apartments by the school are also LG owned. Anyway, we went to Hyundai Mall to try out the best patbingsu in all of Korea. The restaurant, Meal Top, is at the top of the mall and serves about 6 types of patbingsu and maybe 2 other types of dessert. What is patbingsu? It's possibly my favorite thing in Korea yet. I know that isn't saying much, but in other words, it's something I actually like in Korea. So, patbingsu is a dessert made with shaved ice topped with sweetened condensed milk, fruit, fruit puree, and sweetened red beans.


Mine, minus the beans:


But before we could try out the best patbingsu in all of Korea, we had to wait an hour! We walked through the 6 floors of stores and also went up to the sky garden at the very top of the mall.


A nice little retreat in the middle of shopping.


After the delicious patbingsu, which only lasted for a wonderful 5 minutes, Soomin took us on a tour of the area. We went to Rodeo Street, which is known as a wild, lively place for bar hopping and clubbing. However, it was sunday afternoon, the hottest day yet (with no shade to hide under), and not much to look at on Rodeo Street. We parted ways and we headed to Itaewon to find dinner.

Shinsa is south of the river, it took us about an hour to get from our campus to Shinsa. But on the bright side, it was a beautiful day to pass over the river.


We have found that these beautiful sunny days are very rare in Korea. When they do occur, the mountains are more visible and everything seems nicer.


We thought we might try out the new Taco Bell, but decided against it when we saw this line!


Instead we went to a Kebab place. But kebab here means stuff wrapped in a tortilla, kinda like a Middle Eastern taco. Mine had baked potato wedges, lettuce, and some tasty sauce.

On the way back to campus, the sun was setting and making pretty colors.

Seodaemun Prison

We've had such a busy week, I haven't had any time to think about all the things we've done or look at all the pictures until today!

In the last post I mentioned that we had dinner with Kraig's roommate. Somehow, we didn't get a picture of him, we did get a picture of the food. He ordered 3 dishes for us to split: some sort of pork dish (the big plate), noodle soup (not pictured), and egg (second picture). The extras included kimchi, spicy tofu, fish-jerky, and a couple other items.
The boys ate this:


And I stuck to mostly this and my rice:


On friday, I went shopping with Yeram at the Express Bus Terminal. It houses a ginormous underground shopping center; we where there for 2 hours and only saw half of it! Well, while I was shopping, my newest niece was being birthed halfway around the world! Crazy to think about. Really, my new niece is all I can remember of friday. Maybe this picture is from friday?


On saturday we went to the Seodaemun Prison History Hall. Built in 1908, it was used to house, torture and execute political prisoners by Japan until 1945 and then by South Korea until 1987.

At the entrance. We were greeted with an English-speaking tour guide, 14 year old Jill.


Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside the prison administration building because it was being restored. We did get to go inside the Prison buildings where they held the prisoners, the Leper's Building, and the Execution Building.

One of the cells.


Kids! Right before we met our tour guide, a mob of kids entered the prison on a tour. Luckily we passed by them early on the tour.


I'd like to point out that I was having a good hair day. No frizz!!
Also, somebody stole his cigarette.


They had 5 or 6 rooms designed to show many of the torture methods used at the prison. In here, electrocution and 2 types of beatings.


Looking up at the second level. The prison, which had 4 prisoner buildings, could hold around 500 prisoners.


More rooms of torture. If the english is right in the pamphlet, I think they did the torturing in the basement of the Administration Building, not in the cells.


Bad boy, bad! Basically a coffin in an upright position, some prisoners were made to stand in these as another form of torture.


And as you can see, before I could say that the picture came out blurry, they were rushing to get Kraig out so we could move on. Sigh, I wish Koreans would slow down.


The Leper's House. I wish I had know that before I had gone in and touched stuff. Eww. But, the tour guide said that some prisoners would make fake patches and rashes to look as if they were a leper, just to get out of their cells.


Behind the brick wall is the Execution Building. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was a small building that had a table and bench facing a chair and noose. Underneath was a basement for the doctors to check and make sure the person was dead. Also, the Japanese made a tunnel that led to the cemetery so they could sneak out all the dead bodies. Of course, they blocked it off and claimed it wasn't theirs. Also, the tour guide pointed out that the 2 trees pictured were planted in the same year, yet the one on the inside is noticeably smaller than the one on the outside. Scientists have studied the trees and have found no reason for this, other than a romantic reason that the tree on the side is mourning all the death it has seen.


We had a small audience join our tour. Our tour guide is in black.


If you don't think about what happened here, it's a beautiful campus.