Weekend 42 of 52.

Kindergarten Christmas Program, Insadong Musical Instrument Market, Christmas Show at Cafe Ben James

I have deceptively few pictures from last weekend, but it's probably because everything we did was deceptively low-key. We went to see the Kindergarten Christmas Program at Dan's school on Saturday afternoon, after which we went to check out fortifications for our respective instruments (strings for Dan, reeds for me) at the Musical Instrument Market in Insadong. And then we played a Sunday Christmas show at Cafe Ben James right in Hongdae, and that was a lot of fun. I think Dan is working on a Merry Christmas Carol video from that.

My friend Bonnie is set to arrive in Korea tomorrow night, and then she will spend Christmas and New Year's with us. If it is not too cold, that could result in many interesting things.

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.

Weekend 23 of 52.

Cheonggyecheon Stream: Revisited, Doctor Fish: Revisited, Dongdaemun Market: Revisited, Gyeongbokgung Palace: Revisited, Insadong: Revisited, The National Folk Museum: Revisited, Seoul Tower: Revisited, The War Memorial: Revisited, Banpo Bridge, Coex Aquarium, DMZ Tour, Namsan Hanok Village

We had our first visitors! Dan's mom and her friend Sharon made the long journey from Ohio to Seoul. They championed jet lag and immense summer heat and trooped all around the city for 9 solid days of fairly intense sight seeing. It was great to see family, and we tried to give them a good and varied view of this little country we've come to love.

We revisited many of our favorite or quintessential spots, but we even tried out several things Dan and I haven't yet had the chance to do. We hit up the Coex Aquarium on a rainy Saturday, and it was completely packed, but we got to see a two-headed turtle, so still cool. We got over to the Banpo Bridge to watch the fountain/light show. Dan made sure to inform us that it is the largest bridge fountain in the world. We happened upon the Namsan Hanok Village after the Makgeolli concert we wanted to attend was sold out, so we instead got to see how the locals used to live. And we finally went on a tour of the DMZ, which left us longing for reunification.

Right this very moment Jean and Sharon are flying their way back home, and I'm afraid we may now have to ward off some latent homesickness.

Weekend 9 of 52.

The War Memorial of Korea, The Story of King Sejong Exhibition Hall, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin Musuem, Insadong

On Friday night, we were invited to A Passover Celebration put on by Ms. Teresa's class. It was our second Passover this year, and we really enjoyed it. The students had reading parts throughout the Haggadah and we witnessed some fine circle dancing. Dinner was sushi, fried chicken, and pizza. Totally kosher.

Saturday we met up with Korrine to see the War Memorial of Korea. War vehicles of all kinds are set up outdoors and absorbed a lot of our time. Korrine only had the morning free, so we decided to skip a lot of the indoor exhibits instead of rushing through. We aim to return, though, because I really want to see the Korean War room.

After lunch, which is always serendipitously amazing when we three are together (beef porridge), Dan and I went on our own to try and find Insadong. I had read about it in a "24 Hours in Seoul" article I found online, and we keep trying (and failing) to find it based on my hazy recollection of the vague directions given in the article. I knew the directions said something about Gwangwhamun and turning left, so went to the Gwhanghwamun Plaza and found that the statue of King Sejong had a gateway to the underground in it! We walked down and found The Story of King Sejong Exhibition Hall and, just beyond it, the Admiral Yi Sun-Shin Musuem. It was really, really cool. Everything was interactive, with puzzles and video games and walk throughs. We even got interviewed for a young man's college project. I hope we passed.

After our brief educational experience, we set out again for Insadong. Dan hijacked some wifi from a coffee shop and found real directions. We made our way through a winding maze to a veritable hub of souvenir and art dealings. It was teeming with Westerners and proved one of those quintessential experiences. I noted to Dan how culture shocked we'd be if we'd tried that earlier on, that our first night in Seoul we were completely stunned by just a grocery/department store. How far we've come.

So then we went to Myeongdong for some chicken galbi, the spiciest dinner of my lifetime. It is nice to have the odd chicken respite in this red meat (or no meat) country.