... don't really exist in korea. yeah, it's disappointing when the weekend is over, but i never have the back-to-the-grind dread that i experienced with many of my jobs in canada. maybe it's our 1:30pm start time, or the fact that the week zips by and before we know it it's friday again, but i never begrudge mondays anymore. it's kind of refreshing.
this weekend we continued with our touristy journey to seoul. a couple weeks ago, mark scoured our hand-me-down copy of "seoul's best 100" things to do and made a thorough list of all of the attractions and sites that are must sees. so far:
1.
2.
3. gyeongbukgong palace
the palace is an amazing historical fortress, and admission is only ₩3,000 (convenient for my champagne taste on a beer budget - thanks mom). the palace was established in 1395 as the residence for the founder of the joseon dynasty, and the grounds are just so extensive it's breathtaking. we wandered around for nearly 3 hours, enjoying the sunshine and taking far too many pictures. inside the palace premises is also the national folk museum, which had free admission. unfortunately, by this point i was hungry, kind of cranky, and just not in any kind of museum-appreciation-mood. needless to say, we took the hasty fast-forwarded tour of the museum.
in other news, we've taken up informal korean lessons with one of our korean co-teachers. i suppose it's more of a language exchange, as she's looking to better her english. we also spent almost an hour gossiping about travel with her, so i must stress the "informal" part of these lessons. only one session deep, we're still total newbies. however, mark's currently creaming me in the who-can-learn-a-foreign-language-faster competition, as he's already taught himself how to read hangul (mostly while i've been absorbed in my new bookworm habit, now onto the alchemist ...). the only problem is that even once you learn how to read korean, it's still, well, in korean. only one step closer to being literate in this country! as well, i've only gotten as far as memorizing the numbers 1-4 in one of the counting systems (as there's two). hangae, dugae, segae, negae ... then the numbers become more complicated and syllable-heavy after 5. we'll see how this goes.
사랑 당신은 당신을 놓친다
(ok i stuck that in a web translator...)
i'll leave you with some pics from our palace sightseeing:
also, happy birthday dad - RIP p.j.m.xoxo
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