And I slept the day away. >.<
I guess unknowingly I was chalking up a sleep debt, having only slept a few hours each day for the past few days. I'm stuck in this weird sleeping pattern where I sleep at 3-4am, wake up at 7-8am for lessons, and falling asleep after dinner at night for an hour or so, and the cycle repeats. Hope I correct it soon.
I will definitely want to organize my photos and write better entries and the current photo spam if I have more time, but unfortunately, time is a little short on my side. Over here, there's no 'first two weeks' honeymoon period, and lessons start fast and furious. I have already submitted an assignment on my third day of lessons, and I haven't read any of the reading assignments because I don't have some of the books.
Anyway, Day 4 in Seoul was the 31st, or the end of 2011. It was the busiest day in my entire Seoul trip in terms of the number of attractions covered.
First place went: Insadong, a place that sold antiques and artwork.
It was still relatively quiet when we were there, until we reached this shopping mall of sorts.
Apparently there were these two celebrities there, causing a little frenzy there.
We bought this shit shaped snack, complete with two cups of hot chocolate. Instant warmth to the heart in the cold weather.
What is interesting about this shopping mall is that the floors were all sloped, so except for the first flight of stairs at the right of the picture, you can reach the rest of the floors simply by going up and down slope.
It wasn't a long stop because we didn't have anything to buy there. Our next destination was King Sejong, but we were lucky enough to see the nearby Gyeongbokgung Palace open business for the day.
Some ceremony to mark the opening. Like change-of-guards.
Large crowds already waiting to enter the Palace.
After a while they closed off the centre gate, leaving only the two side gates open for reason I don't know.
The gate shown earlier is an outer gate, while this is an inner gate. To enter this gate we had to pay for tickets, and since the Palace was not on our agenda, we left after taking some photos.
The Palace is huge.
Turning around, this long stretch of walkway took us to our next few destinations. First up, King Sejong memorial.
King Sejong was one of the great kings of ancient Korea and had made many contributions, like creating the Hangul, or the Korean alphabet that we are familiar with today, and credited with many technological advances during those times.
A side distraction - KBS media vehicles, probably there for the New Year countdown that night.
This is an instrument for making sky maps of stars and constellations. Interestingly during my GEK class that I took when I was a freshman, I was told this was invented by the Chinese.
Sorry I was in awe of the KBS vehicles.
Before entering the King Sejong memorial we walked furthur down where there was the status of Admiral Yi Sun Sin, a famous naval commander who managed to defeat a 300 strong Japanese naval fleet with just 13 ships. Besides well known for his strategies, he was also famous for having developed the turtle ship, which is a ship with metal stubs on top so that enemy soldiers could not board the ship.
King Sejong memorial.
Ancient rocket launcher, developed during King Sejong's time as well.
Sundial, again by King Sejong.
Next was Admiral Yi's memorial. This is a small scale of the Turtle Ship he helped developed, and these are two soldier figurines in the ship.
While waiting to watch a video, we sat outside this booth where people could write their names in Hangul, and get them pasted on the wall.
I did not take many photos inside the two memorials, because lighting wasn't great. After the memorial, we continued walking down the long walkway where we hit the Cheonggyecheon Stream.
Basically it was this long river stream that cut through the heart of Seoul. It served as an important place for meeting and living in ancient Seoul, and today it is a nice recreation space.
Random ice structure which looked nice but I had no idea what it was. Trees I guess.
Ducks!
Late lunch was stone bowl rice at dongdaemun, where the food was served to us not in a stone bowl.
After lunch it was Namsan! This is the cable car station where the cable car would take us to..
..the N Seoul Tower!
Queues were long but we didn't have to wait long.
By the time we reached the top of the hill, the Sun has already set. This is N Seoul Tower itself.
Reminded me of Hong Kong's Victoria Peak.
About the best that my camera could do.
About the best that my camera could do II.
We did not go up to the observatory on the N Seoul Tower, because queues were ridiculously long, probably because some New Year countdown would set off fireworks somewhere and they all want to watch. We left after taking our photos, to head off to our next destination.
We had a quick stop at Nandaemun, an authentic Korean shopping street. We had a quick walkthrough, and as usual, we had nothing to buy, so we left soon after.
We went back to Myeongdong, where I first went on the first day, to have our dinner, and wait for midnight to near. Myeongdong itself was flooded with people, and large groups of teenagers were standing in the cold giving out free hugs.
Our final destination for the day: Bosingak.
South Korean police out in full force. They are veterans and experts in crowd control and obviously not ones to joke with.
Police bus fleets.
They basically formed human walls to control crowd movements and crowd sizes.
Large crowds waiting in front of the Bosingak as we waited for the new year to come and the Bell to ring. Although crowds were large, we didn't feel squeezed, unlike Singapore.
When midnight came, there were no large scale fireworks, only small firecrackers set off by members of the public.
I think it is quite cheap to buy and set firecrackers off.
After that, we made our way back, ending my longest day in Seoul.
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| Seoul - Day 4 |
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