Wednesday, June 17

On Wednesday I visited Namsangol Hanok Village. It is a mock village with architecture from the same period as the palace I visited on Monday. It turns out I was the only person who showed up for the English tour, so I had a one on one tour with the guide. He liked to chat, and was enthusiastic enough about the subject to have volunteered as a guide. We went over a brief summary of Korea's history, from the Three Kingdoms to modern day.

The day turned out to be very interesting, and I think my guide appreciated the more conversational approach to the tour. We were even joined by the information desk lady when she got off work. I think she may have also been a volunteer guide.

The guide at Namsangol Hanok Village. Thanks for a great tour!

After the historic village, it was already 5:00. The other two things I wanted to do required me to figure out a bus route, so I decided to only do the one the bus came to first and not risk missing both. Thus, I ended up visiting N. Seoul Tower and not the cartoon museum.

The bus stop of no return.

The tower was pretty cool, except they charge you 7000 won just to ride the elevator up there. At the base of the tower there were some dancers performing. They wore hats with long streamers ad played drums and cymbals. Part of the skill of the dance appeared to be keeping the hat streamers rotating at all times.

At the top of the tower I found a majestic view of the city, or what you could see through the half fog, half smog. I stayed up there and wrote a journal entry. For 7000 won, I wasn't going to just pop up and take a peek!