BongEunsa and CoEx

First things First, A BIG Congrats to RyanRunsEurope, who I've been following since my return from NZ. Amazing job, Well done, mate.

Oh Goodness I'm totally behind, but I am going to get internet soon so hopefully I'll be firing off these badboys to keep all of my friends stateside up to date on the happenings of KoreaWorld.

So on Sunday I jumped on the subway armed only with my good camera and my Lonely Planet Seoul and out of nowhere BAM! It was my friend Jess, traveling with a girl who teaches in China. It scared the crap out of me, but they were going to spend the day in CoEx and Bongeunsa, a mall and a temple, respectivly. We ate in Coex, and Kerry (Girl teaching in China) was craving western food, since she can't get it in her neck of Asia, but I got some Manduguk, since Korean food is in fact growing on me. Manduguk, with mandu being a dumpling and guk being the word for soup (I'm getting there).
We met with her friend Clare. ANd scurried to the "magical hidden temple", which we finally got to. It is one of the largest Buddhist and most traditional temples. It was really large, and allowed for a lot of wandering and exploring. I'm not sure, but I feel like temples and palaces all kind of look alike. But this one had a Buddah. NOt like, a statue of buddah, but a HUGE Massive we're talking 23 meters high, largest statue of Buddah in Korea size Buddah. The biggest I've ever seen. It was rediculously cool.
It was a beautiful place, and it was a Holiday Sunday so there were heaps of people there praying and worshipping and doing normal sunday at service activites, and there was us taking pictures and lurking. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that, but I guess they're used to it. You could only imagine. There was one room with thousands of Buddahs. Lining the wall, everywhere. It was rediculous. The place was very Zen, as it should be, and very neat to explore. I am definitly going to go back to get there more than an hour before closing time to check out the grounds and find my Buddhist ways.
After we lurked, we went into Coex to look around. I wasn't overly impressed. A lot of expensive shit. The mall wasn't as cool as everybody was making it out to be, but maybe we missed something. There was, however a bookstore that had a foreign collection. Good to keep in mind. And heaps of lonely planets for all of my adventures 8)
Update soon about life in general!
Patience and Faith,
ErinJ

Gyeongbokgung

Excuse the spelling for those that may know it better.
So I went to gyeongbokgung this weekend. Its a HUGE palace in center Seoul, well, I guess towards the north west end.
BUT It was my first subway ride where I had to change lines, and I feel confident enough in my abilities in the subway system to call them "my bitch" That right. Whoever said that the system was too complicated to manuever was sadly mistaken. Whatever, I paid my dues being lost in London, Boston and NYC that I should be able to work a subwaysystem by now.
Does the subway here have an affectionate nickname?
But I digress.
What were we talking about?
Gyeoungbokgung.
Excellent.
So yeah, huge palace, that is actually a reconstruction of a palace from when the Japanese burned it down. So rebuilt, and very neat. I don't know how true it is to he origional, but lets pretend like THIS i the origional, cause it makes me happy.
There was a tour in english which is ALWAYS appreciated, thanks Korea!
IT was all in all very interesting. The history of the place was really cool. And the gardens were incredible. There were pagodas and temples and shrines and the like. (Don't worry my non facebook friends-I'll get images on smugmug ASAP, or as soon as I get internetz I'm not leaning out of my window to steal.) And since the images are so large since I took them on my nice camera, its so hard to put them on here.
There were however, big, jaws size fish with weird sucking mouths. We all know how I feel about that. But the palace was actually where king, queen, heir (but no other kids), cocubines and ladies in waiting actually lived, so imagine 700+ people hanging out here. Koreans do enjoy being crowded, although I'm not sure why. Even back then, it seems.
Apparently a queen was murdered here, and although I don't like murder I do love political scandle. I mean, bummer for the king, and shame on you, japanese!
I liked the fact that the first son's chambers were in the east, because he rises like the sun. Very clever, early KOreans!

Anways, the palace ground are huge, and include two museums I'm going to have to go back and see. and at 3,000 won ( 2 bucks) for admission (you can't get better then ROK prices) why not check it out.

Start expecting some observations on life in Korea, life as an Expat and life out of the rat race.

Yo Theres me being adorable in front of a palace!