Saturday, October 28, 2006

First Day in Seoul. 汉城/首尔。

The hostel I'm staying at is between Jongno3ga Subway Station 钟路3街 and Chongdeokgung 昌德宫. It's one of the good ones. I'm in a 4 person room for 16000 Won per night. Clean and simple -- very happy with Steve's choice.

We met up with Simon for lunch near the impressive Central district -- Gwunghwamun 光华门. These most prominent office buildings are backgrounded by an awesome looking mountain and ancient palaces and parks. Near the hustle and bustle were more local streets with local restaurants that serve tasty food. I had some really good Kimchi-Tofu Soup.

In the afternoon I did my homework as a foreigner and went sightseeing. I visited Gyeongbokgung 景福宫, and Chongdeokgung 昌德宫. It was a nice walk in the greens. At night we had some traditional Korean food and then traversed the artsy district of In-Sa-Dong 仁寺洞, and had some Korean rice wine -- that was very tasty.

Then in later hours we visited the famous Namdamun 南大门 -- kind of like Ladies Market 女人街 of Hong Kong or former Xiangyang Street 襄阳路 of Shanghai.

A typical pleasant touristy day in a new country for me.

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