Weekend 36 of 52.

Cafe Rumi, Unhyeongung Palace, Insadong, Seoul Lantern Festival, Bosingak Bell Pavilion

We kick-started last weekend with mid-week fun at Cafe Rumi, a TV and Wii room, to celebrate Luke's birthday. We bowled, we boxed, we ice-skated, and we had bottomless soda and ice cream. A fine way to spend a Wednesday.

On Saturday we went to our third palace (1 here and here, 2 here). I have been surprised at the differences between the palaces. This one felt more casual and had mannequins set up to display the clothes and practices of the time. After the palace, we walked through Insadong. Dan and I got harassed by a drunk man alternately trying to give us things and get us to bow low and say we were thankful. But for real, he followed us the length of Insadong's main road, pressing a crappy mirror compact into Dan's chest, until a vendor told him to leave us alone. It was not awesome. At least we got some tasty street food. This time a stuffed and fried pancake called hodduk.

The Seoul Lantern Festival is on, so we tried to muscle our way down to Cheonggyecheon Stream to see the light show. It was completely packed, complete with police officers manning the stairs and a queue snaking around stream's wall. We abandoned that idea, peeked down from street level, and then moved on.