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Dongdaemun Museum, Bukchon and more~

Yesterday was a full day of being a tourist in Seoul with friends I haven't seen since last year. Although it has been 2 years since I was last here, there definitely has been many changes here. Sunday morning, I decided to meet my language exchange buddy, who helped me a lot with my Korean while I was in Victoria. It was so great to be able to see her again. We went to the newly established Dongdaemun museum. It really has an interesting/futuristic design and we decided to check it out.
Inside there were a couple of exhibits that you could choose to visit, but we decided to go to an exhibit called The Treasures of KANSONG: Preserving national Identity through Culture. Apparently this person named Kansong was a collector of some of Korea's national treasures and now it has been placed in a museum. One of the treasures, that I personally mostly recognized, was the transcript of King Sejong's explanation of Hangeul called the Hunminjeongeum. Picture taking was forbidding within the exhibition, so I wasn't able to take any. However, did took a couple of pictures of the weird funky futuristic designed buildings. It was hard to take a picture of the whole thing and definitely an interesting design. Since it is connected to a subway station, there is actually a really nice shopping area developing.

After something to eat, we decided to go to Bukchon village. There we walked around to see Korean traditional houses. It was interesting to hear that people are actually living in those houses to today so when we were walking around Bukchon, we had to remain quiet as to not bother the other residents. It made me wonder what it would be like to live in those traditional houses. We had the opportunity to actually be inside in one of the houses. Number 47: SimSimheon. There after depositing KRW 10,000 you get a tour of the house and tea at the end. Although it maintains its traditional architectural design, it also has modern setting inside as well that was cool to see. A combination of modern and traditional in one. It was really beautiful and made me think what it would be like to actually be living in one. From there we walked to Insadong, had lunch and looked around. It was really nice to see a friend I haven't seen for a very long time. Although sight seeing is nice, what is more valuable is definitely the conversations between friends. It's funny because I just arrived from Japan, my Korean language has been slight awkward. Maybe by the time I leave, my Korean will be up again but then my Japanese language will be awkward again. Well it happens right?









Afterwards met up with different friends in Gangnam to eat at my favourite chicken restaurant. YEOLBONG! ( Ah~ now they have the option of adding cheese to my favourite chicken dish. Oh~ it was soooo delicious. The weather started to get really rainy towards the end of the day, so the chicken dish was just absolutely wonderful! Ended the day with Noraebang (Karoake) time across the street where apparently because of the rain, the owner decided to give us so so so so much extra service. Oh how I love Korea for their "service" service? Redundant much. By the end of the day, I was tired, voice was hoarse but all in all a good day. Today will be mostly a shopping day. Myeongdong/Dongdaemun. I need teacher clothes. Welcome to the adult career life.

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