경복궁 | Gyeongbokgung

Ever on the hunt for interesting, cultural places to go, we felt that Gyeongbokgung was a good way to go. Easy enough to get to, and pretty impressive visually, we headed over to take a look.

Again, it was freezing cold, so much so that large parts of the bodies of water dotted around the palace grounds had thin sheets of ice dotted around, and the ground was frosty. But the sky was crystal clear and the sun was shining, so once again it was a really good trip out.

I'd already taken a lot of photos of the palace itself, so I'll just post a few.
The cold prevented us from lingering very long, and the kimchi house was locked up (presumably because of the weather or season) so we kept moving and left to get a look at the Statue of King Sejong and a brief visit to the museum underneath, with the pretense of warming up my numb feet.

남산 (다시!) | Namsan (again!)

No, I'm not! Rude.

So, Mike came back from Hong Kong, and Nick's brother Jon also joined us for a few days. Having guests is really hectic but great because it means we usually actually put some effort into doing something interesting ;p

We discussed for a while the sort of thing we'd like to do as a nice, gentle introduction to Korea, considering Jon had just come off a long-haul flight mere hours beforehand.

A photo posted by Jon Desmond (@jeanpauldemon) on Jan 30, 2015 at 11:21pm PST

As a joke, I suggested we climb Namsan and get a good look at the entirety of Seoul but guess what we ended up doing?

Yup.

We took the cable car up, as it's cold and easier to walk down than it is to climb up.
I've never taken the cable car before, but it was really quick and easy to use, and really fun!

Same as last time, we managed to arrive just as there was a performance setting up. The performers put on a display of fighting techniques using old Korean weapons, cutting up bamboo and set practice drills, all to dramatic music. Afterwards, you can get a photo with them.

Seoul Food | 백반 Baekban

Because I don't post about food enough (ha), I thought I'd share with you the incredible dinner my head co-teacher treated me and Nick to sometime back in late January. I'm not sure if this would really be called 'baekban' but I'm also not sure what it's actually called, so until I find out, this is the placeholder name I'll be using.

I read two different meanings for baekban, "hundred side dishes" and "cooked white rice". Either way, it's pretty accurate.

This is a more traditional Korean-style meal, with loads and loads of little dishes scattered around for everyone to pick and choose from. It's absolutely ridiculous and a lot of fun. Usually most places just wheel in a trolley and rapidly throw bowls into empty spaces with skill and accuracy, but this place took a different and presumably more time-efficient method.

They wheel in a second table-top and it slots on over the existing one. In one fell swoop, all of the food is on and ready and you don't have to worry about spilling stuff on a customer in the rush.

It was super nice and we got to have some quality time with our busy co-teachers and coworkers, even if it was only for a little while. ^^

월미도 | Wolmido: Why Does it Always Rain On Me

We've been to Wolmido a few times now. And for some reason, it's rained pretty much every. Single. Time. Regardless of time of day or season, or the recent weather surrounding it. It's like our own little slice of England on the coast of Incheon. I don't understand.

We wanted to take Mike to Wolmi, as it's always quite unusual and fun, and quite different to home. There's also the 'model village' park that we like to go to. I don't know if it has a proper name, but it's basically lots of little examples of Korean architecture and replicas of historical buildings all in one place. It's really lovely! When the rain holds off.

We managed to have a look around before we got too swamped, but the sandy area around my favourite bit, the hanok displays, had turned to mud and I wasn't willing to ruin my already poor choice of footwear. So we wandered back onto the tarmac and headed towards a building I'd always seen signposted but never actually visited.

I can't remember the  exact name, and I can't actually seem to find any evidence of its existence online either, but it's definitely a real place. Something like the Incheon Food and Culture Centre. Anyway, we wandered in to see what would happen, and at the very least hoping for some respite from the rain.

It actually ended up being incredibly fun!

덕수궁 | Deoksugung

Creepy, cold and deserted school rooms. My life for about a month.

After our return from Tokyo, it was straight back into school. School terms run at a different schedule to home, with the new school year coinciding more with the Lunar New Year (March) rather than harvest seasons (September). This meant that, although my contract required me to be in school, I didn't actually have any classes, especially as I'd already done all of my winter 'camps' (optional extra English classes that run for a week or so during the holiday period) before our trip to Japan.

This meant I was doing the dreaded "deskwarming" that you hear a lot of native English teachers here talking about, if not complaining. Most other teachers don't have to come in, as they run on a different contract, so usually the school is almost completely empty. A lot of schools used to let their teachers take the day off during this time, to save electricity and heating that's kind of wasteful for one person (if they have the central heating turned on at all, sometimes it's not. Hellish!). Unfortunately at orientation we were told that a few people had complained that their friend got time off and not them...so the rules were changed and generally you now have to stay as deemed by your contract. Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things.

Anyway. It's not as mind-numbingly boring as people make it out to be. I wrapped myself in pyjama bottoms and blankets and caught up on some TV shows, drew some pictures, read books and comics, wrote blog posts, and studied my Korean in a nice, quiet room. As an introvert it wasn't really much different to how I spend my time at home, except the chair was a little bit less comfortable.

This was a little frustrating though, partly because I was thinking of all the travelling I could be doing in that time, but also because we'd brought a guest back from Japan that I felt like we should have been entertaining. Not that they were unable to explore on their own, but South Korea can be a bit intimidating for a first-timer, especially as we don't live that close to the main tourist attractions in Seoul, so the journey can be a little more difficult.

We ended up searching for things that can be done in the evening other than eating and drinking, because usually by the time we get to Seoul if we leave school bang on the ring of the bell, it's still about 6pm. One of the things we found was Deoksugung, a palace near Seoul City Hall.