First I went to Gyeongbokgung Palace.  Its the biggest palace in Seoul, and its really big and really pretty. Went there the first weekend I was here with Jin Young Choi, and went back the next weekend with the HUG group at Sogang

The main gate at Gyeongbokgung Palace. Guards stand at all the entrances dressed up in traditional Korean clothes.

Entrance to the Palace overlooks one of the many gardens in the Palace.

The side of the room where the King’s throne is.  Biggest and prettiest building.

My favorite place in Seoul so far. I’m really looking forward to visiting here when the cherry blossoms are blooming!

In front of the Blue House.  The current Korean President lives here.  Its behind Gyeongbokgung. Doesn’t have quite the security that the White House does though.

After visiting Gyeongbokgung, it was time to start classes.  I’m taking four classes here: Popular Music, Jazz Music, American Film in a Global Context, and Political Development.  All my classes are taught in English, and I’m even getting a curved grade in one of the classes because most the people in the class are Korean and they are all worried about taking a class where English is the only language of instruction.  Most of my homework is just reading or watching movies, so I haven’t had too much work to do yet.  All my classes are in buildings that I can see from my dorm room which is really nice. Really different from PSU classes.  

Every weekend, the HUG group plans a field trip for us.  The first weekend was to Gyeongbokgung, but this weekend’s trip was like a scavenger hunt.  We split up into 8 different groups and each group went to a different place in Seoul.  I went to a place called Dongdaemun.  The area is known for the Oldest Gate in Seoul as well as a busy shopping area.  Unfortunately the shoes here are all too small for me almost so I didn’t buy anything yesterday.  They do have lots of street food vendors though.  There are places that have things like hotdogs, but they’re hotdogs covered in french fries, then deep fried.  Then they dunk them in ketchup.  People everywhere were eating them! I guess its more convenient than carrying around french fries separately from your hot dog, but its still a little strange… On the other hand, they have smaller vendors that are making Bundigie.  Its silk worm larva that they put into a giant bowl and essentially fry.  They smell terrible and look pretty bad. Couldn’t bring myself to try them.

One of the German guys in my group tried them and he said they weren’t bad, but they honestly smelled so bad that I couldn’t do it. The Japanese girl with me tried it but she spit it out as soon as she took a bite.  Also while we were in Dongdaemun we went on a ride on the side of the street called “Disco Jump”. Its a big circle where you sit down and have to hold onto bars around the outside.  It gets lifted up and starts bouncing you and shaking you.  It was fun, but really scary and I’m pretty sure our group of people were the oldest people on the ride.  Unfortunately I have all sorts of bruises on my arms now from holding on.  I couldn’t take my camera on the ride, so I found a video of it on youtube.  

        

After our tour of Dongdaemun, we met the entire group of exchange students at the Namsan tower (Seoul Tower).  It’s on top of one of the mountains in Seoul and if you go up to the observatory, you can see all of Seoul. It’s really pretty but I think its better to go at night because when we arrived at dusk, you can’t really see much. Its too foggy or maybe its just bad air quality, but either way, its cooler to see the lights from the building at night.

It’s still hard for me to believe I’m living here! But its cool to see all the different parts of Seoul and to see just how big it is.  We actually found our dorm from the top of the tower! Can’t see it here, but you can follow the writings on the windows there to see how far you are away from different cities in the world.

If you can’t read it, I was somewhere between 11,180.48 and 11,061.86 km away from home!

I’m staying in the rest of the day now to do homework. Not sure where the field trip for next weekend is yet, but it’s our last tour of Seoul.  Then we start going on tours outside of Seoul to see other parts of Korea! 

Will blog again later! Love to all my family and friends!