Seoul Weekend With Madeleine

We (Ty, Zach, Alex and I) headed up to Seoul to meet up with Madeleine who was visiting me from La Pocatiere (well, now she lives in Quebec), and to see our friend Kristen who had returned to Korea after 8 months in Canada.

Friday night was an evening to explore the Hongdae area of Seoul - university nightlife and restaurants and such.

Alex, Zach, Madeleine, Kristen, Hyun-joong

Figuring that Madeleine had three weeks to enjoy Korean cuisine, we ate at a Mexican restaurant before heading out to a few places for drinks. We ended up in what felt like a higher end bar than what we're used to, and it was great to catch up on news from home with Madeleine (it also occurred to me just how homesick I must have been lately for friends from home....)

Alex, Zach, Madeleine, Me, Ty outside the "Ho Bar"

We didn't stay out too late though, because we had a full day planned on Saturday. First, we headed to Gyeongbokgung (an old royal palace).

Madeleine with a royal guard

We were quite happily posing with the palace guards when we noticed that there were costumes to dress up in and have our pictures taken (for FREE!)...

Aren't we hot?

...at which point we went a bit insane with the "Choson's Next Top Model" poses.

Me and Jongwon at Gyeongbokgung

Madeleine's excellent photo of the lake pagoda

From there, we hit the rest of the palace, including the "pagoda in the lake" and statues of our Chinese zodiac animals (Mom, you should recognize these from your visit).

The Rabbit and The Tiger

The Monkey

The Puppydog!

We spent at least an hour in the Folk Museum, which was probably the best Korean museum I have seen so far.

Madeleine with riot police.... she saw a lot of things that day!

We started off to Insadong, and were surprised to see busloads of riot police getting ready. We figured that they were probably getting ready for yet another misguided anti-American beef protest - the protests have now been generalized to anti-Lee Myeong-bak (Korea's president) protests - and we were right.

The protesters filled the street, and stretched back for blocks.... maybe a few thousand people

After walking down the street, we were faced with an entire street-full of protesters marching along. The boys ended up going out to see what all the hype was about and checking out the media circus of Korean protests.

Wait... I've forgotten Insadong... anyway.... Before we saw the protesters, we went to Insadong to show Madeleine some of the more traditional gifts to be found in Korea. After a really excellent traditional Korean meal, we shopped our way along the street until we found the Old Tea Shop - a great tea place with live birds flying around.

Madeleine in the tea shop

Our teas

Birds behind Alex

After we left, this bird came along to eat our leftovers

I've been there before with Nicola and with Ty, and it's such a unique place to visit.

Protesting China's policy on North Korean refugees
(they send them back to North Korea where they are persecuted, instead of sending them to South Korea where they will be repatriated as citizens)

Later that evening, we met up with Kristen again for supper in Itaewon at the Moroccan restaurant (Yes Mom, the same place, but they've expanded and it's great), then out for a beer before fatigue from a full day of walking and sight-seeing got the better of us.

On Sunday, we went back to Itaewon to eat breakfast and shop before grabbing the KTX back to Mokpo.

Yes, Madeleine is sending postcards to her friends...

It was a very full weekend, full of a variety of experiences, and a great introduction to Korea for Madeleine. Tomorrow, she will come to my school and we will teach my students a few words of French. Yup... I'll take tons of pictures of that too.

Obligatory couple shot