Coming from South Korea!

As much as I'm dreading this, I know I need to get these on here and put a synopsis of my trip to Korea. There's just so much to it and so many pictures! I tried going through all my video as well and finally gave up on that one. I was getting too overwhelmed. Maybe next time with a regular update I'll add some Kore footage, but for today I'm simplifying and just doing a re-cap with photos. Here goes!!

I left on Fri morning, Oct. 16th. I arrived in Seoul at 6:30 Saturday night. (About 3:30 am. our time) and looked for Richard for an hour and a half!! I was amazed how few people spoke English and they were all trying to get me a taxi or a train! I had no way to phone him since he doesn't own a phone there and knew no one to get a hold of him. I figured he was on his way, but didn't know if he got lost or robbed or what! I paged him several times and decided to wait at the USO. He finally showed up and we took the city bus to the base 3 1/2 hours away.

The next day was Sun and I got the grand tour of the base and we went to church, where only 6 other members (give or take each Sunday) attended. Very interesting. On Mon we hung out some more and went to his shop. I left very sick and was still feeling pretty bad. That day the weather was windy, cold, and rainy. Two guys that Richard works with and hangs out with the most came and got us. You can only have a car if your are a Senior NCO so he's the only one that has a car. They took me to the infamous A-town. I've heard Richard talk about this place quite a bit so I was excited to go. It's about a 10-15 min drive from the base and is basically an ally with a few shops, restaurants, and mainly bars that the Americans from the base go to. I had my first taste of Korean BBQ there-Bulgogi. It was pretty good!

On Tues. we went golfing, hung out with this guy that Richard golfs with that wants to learn English, packed our stuff up, went to Gunsan (the town closest to Kunsan) and went out to dinner down in Gunsan with a bunch of people from Richard's shop. I found the Hanbok's (which is the traditional dress worn for holidays and back in the older days) but discovered that they are pretty expensive (about $200) so I decided my girls would not be getting one of those for sure! They are very pretty, though.

On Wed. we left the base. I couldn't leave that place fast enough! I don't know how he manages to live there! We took a city bus to Seoul and then figured out the Subway station. Here's our cards we each had with pre-loaded money we put on. We just set it on a sensor and it paid for our trip to the next station. It was so easy to get around and find everywhere we needed to go once we figured out how they had it organized. It was an amazing system they set up.

On Thursday we went to the Army base in Seoul and took a tour we had arranged through them to go to the DMZ (Demiliterized Zone) between North Korea and South Korea. I wish I would have gone back and taken a copy of the release form we had to sign stating that we understood our risks for being shot and killed by the North Koreans during our tour and how we were to behave. Our cameras could be confiscated if we ever took a picture that was unauthorized, etc. We went to the Joint zone that we share with the North Koreans and went to a briefing and then go to see the building where the peace treaty was signed. We even got to stand in North Korea for a few min. Richard is standing in front of the door that the North Koreans enter when they meet with the UN. He's standing with a South Korean gaurd. This picture on the left is a picture of the North Korean side of the Joint Force area. I am standing on the steps of the "Freedom House" a place built for the North Korean and South Korean families that were seperated to be able to meet and visit with each other. The place has never been used, however, because the North Koreans will not authorize their people to meet there. The building on the left is where we were in at the picture above. You can barely see the North Korean gaurd standing on the front of their building. He kept pulling his binoculars out and watching us. It was a little creepy. We were told that if approached by a North Korean we were not to acknowledge, smile, wave, etc. as they could shoot us immediately. I was allowed to zoom in and get a picture. You had to ask permission before you took pictures if you weren't sure. I thought it was odd that I couldn't smile or wave at the North Koreans, but I was allowed to take a picture!

We were then bussed to the actual Strip of land that seperates the 2 countries. You weren't allowed to take pictures of the area... I'm guessing they didn't want people to be able to map out the land to prepare for infiltration or something. You could take a picture from behind the yellow line. There was a viewing area before the yellow line with those binocular things you can put a quarter in (I'm sure it was won and not a quarter, though) but no cameras were allowed. I thought it was a funny sight to see all these people trying to get a shot from the yellow line, so that's the picture I took. After we got back from our tour we went to the Korean War Memorial Museum. This day was probably my most favorite day. I just found the whole DMZ thing very fascinating and really got a grasp about how terrorized the South Koreans are with the whole North Korean thing and how much North Koreans hate the US and South Koreans. My grandpa fought in the Korean war so it was very interesting to learn so much about it. We spent several hours in the museum and enjoyed watching all the videos and clips and displays there. Never could have done that with 5 kids trailing us!! These pillars lined all the way around the front of the museum. Each pillar has so many names of people that died in the war. You can see how many pillars are down the row on each side with that many names, and then these pillars surrounded the museum on the sides and front. I had no idea how many people had died in this war!

On Friday we found the South Korea temple. It was right in the middle of a neighborhood! We weren't able to do a session but it was neat to be able to find it and see it. We could see the Moroni from the main street and just kept following it into the neighborhood where the temple popped out around the corner!

After finding the temple we decided to find some of the palaces on our list. There were only certain times that English tours were and fortunately in all my online research, I found the times as well. It coordinated so well! We were able to go to the

Changdeokgung Palace and had an English tour at 1:30 and had just enough time to go across to another side of Seoul and make it to the 3:30 tour of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

So the Changdeokgung Palace was the 2nd palace and built in 1405 and was the principle place for the Joseon Kings and also the best preserved. The grounds has a public palace area, royal family residence building and a rear garden. This picture is the public palace area and these markers are where the dignitaries had to lind up next to their assigned marker based on rank when events happened. The picture on the left is inside the building you see where the people line up and it has the King's throne. This palace had descendants of the Royal family living in the family quarters until sometime in the late 1980's. After seeing the quarters, I decided I would prefer my own home. It was nothing like the castles we saw in Germany where it was totally decked out! These palaces were very sparsley furnished and had no updating at all!! The floors were heated with underground pits they stocked coal in and then chimneys to the side of the buildings released the smoke. It was very interesting.

So next we went to the Northern palace, Gyeonbokgung Palace, placed in the northern part of Seoul. The Changdeokgung palace is the Eastern palace. It was built in 1395. It is known to be the most beautiful (I thought so as well ... seemed most complete and furnished the most). The set up was almost identical to the other palace as far as main court, King's quarters, Queen's quarters, concubines, etc. The inside looked very different inside the quarters, however.

This is a picture of the pond on the grounds and the building was where they would do outside dinners and dances. I just thought it was so serene and beautiful. It is one of the most complete areas of the palaces. After touring the two palaces we also went to the National palace museum and the National Folk Museum.

This is an example of the queen's chambers. They had all these room right next to each other and with door ways into each other, but each room is very small.

Behind the palace is the "Blue House" Blue represents royalty and power. This is the President of South Korea's house. I thought it was funny that their president has a Blue house and we have a White house for our president. An interesting story about this that we learned at the DMZ was several years ago some North Koreanv soldiers came through an underground tunnel and showed up on this street to assassinate the President. 28 of the North Korean soldiers were killed, one escaped back into N. Korea and one was captured.

In the National Folk Museum, they had a display of different Hangbok's. I wish you could see the craftsm

anship and handwork they do on some of these dresses!

After going through the museums, we went to Insa-Dong, which is a huge market place meant for every tourist! It has all the traditional items one would want to remind them of the their trip. I was able to get pretty much everything I wanted for all the kids and I. I really wanted to get a celadon vase, which is a type of pottery that the Koreans perfected back in the Dynasty ages. China and other countries have tried to copy the technique but weren't able to. It was once so precious that only royalty could own it. Now that modern technology is here, it is more readily available, but still very expensive. I was able to get a pretty large piece for a great price so I was very excited about that. I had really wanted to get a "knock-off" hand bag from Gucci or Prada or something, but there were not booths that sold anything like that. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the market place because it was crazy! But I was probably overwhelmed with everything! We could barely walk back to our hotel from the subway we were so exhausted that night!!

Saturday we got up and knew it was our last day to get everything finished off our list! We went to the last Palace that remained out of the 5. It is the Deoksuggung Palace and located on the corner of Seoul's busiest downtown intersectio. It is from the Joseon Dynasty as well. We got there just as they were doing a change of gaurds ceremony which was so fun to watch! Maybe another time I'll add video of it. The costumes and music were amazing! There must have been some heritage thing going on because they had a fashion show going on from the main palace as well as different booths set up demonstrating how to do the knot work they are known for, tea ceremonies, a booth where they did people's hair in the traditional way, etc. It was so fun to watch and see. On the outside, they had a place set up where you could try on the Hangbok, so I decided to take them up on that opportunity. I was glad I didn't spend $200 on one because I totally felt huge and prego! We were not too far from the Dongdaemum Market, which is another huge market, but more locals go to it. It is more clothing. I was really hoping to get a good purse, but after being on the army base and asking around, we found out that really the market outside of Osan (base Richard was supposed to go to) was the best place for a knock-off. It was still fun to go through there, but since it was a Saturday it was incredibly crowded and crazy! After going through the market we went and looked for the Korean Village. It was so wierd because it's right in the middle of the crazy city. It's another one of those walk through neighborhood streets and then you come across it.

It was like stepping back in ti

me 100 years ago. It was really neat to see demonstrations of schooling, Kimchi cooking, floor mat making, rice grinding, etc. It was neat to walk through. We got to watch some traditional dancing and music as well.

The last main thing that was on our list was to ride up the North Seoul Tower, which is like the equivilant to the Space Needle in Seattle. It was probably one of the hardest places for us to find, but after asking several locals, we found it. It is a very popular place to go ... at least on the weekend! We should have went on Thurs, but oh well. We walked to the base of Mt. Namsam and then waited in line for about an hour and took a cable car up the mountain. After getting off we still had to hike a bit to get to the tower. After getting into the tower you have to buy another ticket and we waited almost an hour for our number to come up to get on the elevator to take you to the top of the tower where you can overlook all of Seoul. There was a huge multi country air show going on and we just happened to get to the top of the tower and in front of one of a few windows that overlooked a huge firework show going on. It was really cool to see. Then we waited in line for another hour to get down the elevator and waited another hour to get on the cable car. Then we dragged ourselves back to the hotel room.

Well, believe it or not, I didn't post all my pictures. I am now glad I didn't add video!! I'm exhausted and my kids are hungry and fighting, so I better get off. It was a great opportunity and a fabulous trip! I'll post again in the future and add some video and Halloween updates. So long for now! Kim