Today was a beautiful day in Seoul. Lovely sunny weather with a nice gentle breeze. We hadn't realised it was a public holiday until Ian went downstairs to settle our account with the post adoption services and discovered that they were closed. Not deterred we headed out into the world to visit my favourite palace - Gyeongbokung. The subway was still running but on a slightly altered timetable - meaning they still were running more frequently than any service in Melbourne!
We arrived at Gwanghwamum station and when we came up from the subway we encountered the SMoH with thousands of people enjoying the beautiful day and the public holiday. The queue to get tickets to enter the palace was probably about 1000 people long and the crowds of people wandering up to the palace quickly had us changing our plans and high tailing it out of the area.
We decided instead to head to a much smaller palace that Ian and I had visited when we came to pick up Kim - Unhyeongung. This palace isn't as fancy as the larger ones and it is made of more natural colours - rather than the elaborate decorative artwork of the large palaces. There were people there - but nothing like the crowds we had seen at the gates of Gyeongbokung - so we were able to wander around at our own pace to enjoy this beautiful place.
After Unhyeongung we headed over to Insadong for some lunch before hitting the shops for a little retail therapy. Again the SMoH was present - but with the bustle of the market stalls it didn't make you feel overpowered. We did a little shopping - okay - I did a lot of shopping, ate some street food, watched some buskers and even saw a Korean drama being filmed.
As we had had such a physically demanding day yesterday we headed back to the agency about mid-afternoon for a bit of a relax before heading out to Hongik tonight for a walk to the university, along the fashion streets and then on to find some tea before going back to the guest house to get ready for tomorrow. The SMoH was in full force around the Hongik area - lots of wonderful hustle and bustle, car horns, motorbikes and people moving from one place to another.
Tomorrow we are heading off to participate in a special adoption event being run by Eastern Social Welfare Society (the adoption agency). We are travelling to Gongju to stay overnight in a traditional Hanok village with 9 other adoptive families. Five families are overseas adoptive families (which includes us) and the other five families are local adoptive families (Korean families who have adopted Korean children). Each overseas family is paired with a Korean family and we have a translator to help us communicate. We get to do some traditional Baekje (local cultural) activities and to share our stories of adoption and what it means to us. I may not be able to post tomorrow night - but will fill everyone in when we get back on Saturday night.
Till then - stay safe and hug your loved ones!
No comments:
Post a Comment