Saturday in Seoul was fun.  We didn’t rush, had a good breakfast and boarded the subway around noon.  After about an hour, we got out at Insadong and spent the whole day walking up and down streets lined with vendors and galleries.  May knows how to pick good stalls for street snacks, so I was able to try some very tasty things.  She and the girls did a bit of shopping while I as usual just looked on.  Then we went to an area with narrow old streets that had some of the few houses from the past that still remain in Seoul.  Like much of Korea, the successful push to modernize since 1953 has meant the leveling of many old buildings.  Seoul is a mad house compared to Incheon, but this area was relatively quiet and uncrowded and lined by high, stone walls covered in ivy.  From there we walked to a palace site and toured the grounds.  At this point Jay and Frank began the cell phone calling and texting that finally led to the latter’s meeting us at the front gate of the palace about half an hour later.  By this time it was dusk.  We walked into an area of busy streets, bars, neon lights that rise up 8 or 10 stories and innumerable restaurants.  We were in search of a Korean barbecue place.  We found a good one and enjoyed a slow meal, cooking the beef and pork, drinking soju and beer and talking.  Frank is a friend of Jay’s from high school who is married to a Korean and living in Incheon; it was good to see him after all these years and changes.  We didn’t get home until after 11, by which time I was exhausted and the cold that hadn’t really bothered me up until then hit me.  I coughed all night and stayed in bed on Sunday.  Today I only left the house to buy ingredients for a chicken soup from a great little grocery and meat market down the street from Jay’s place.  May had made chicken soup on Sunday, but we ate it all and now it was all I wanted.  The girls and I just ate some of mine for our dinner. I was glad they liked it because some kids are pretty picky and I think Min-Hee is among those but she loves all soups.  Jay just called from work to say that he and Dave are having a bit of trouble organizing our trip to the DMZ for Saturday.  It appears that the tour we wanted isn’t available on Saturdays unless we get to the Marriott Hotel in Seoul by 7:00am for the only departure.  As that would mean rising at 5 and taking a one- hour subway ride, we decided against it.  We will take a less complete but much more manageable tour that leaves at either 10:00am or noon.

Tomorrow I’m going to go to Jay’s school to meet some of his students.  His boss has invited us to lunch and then Jay will take me to a clinic that is in the same complex as the school.  I’m not keen of the use of antibiotics but I think I need to bring out the heavy artillery before we visit the DMZ.

Shopping in Seoul

Sightseeing in Seoul

Two things you see everywhere in Korea are hills and these crazy cartoon characters

A group of ajjushi having their picture taken.  Jay loves the way men and women of a certain age travel in packs in Korea

The old and the new in downtown Seoul

The street where we found the barbecue restaurant

A sign inside a women's washroom in Seoul.  Jay said that in many areas of Seoul and Incheon you are asked not even to put toilet paper down the toilet. As it is not considered proper to have bare feet even in sandals, women often wear knee-high nylons and get runs in them, so I guess they have to be warned against throwing them down the toilet.  It reminded me of the signs on boxes in our church in the fifties saying, "If your nylons run, let them run to Korea."  Maybe they put them down toilets and permanently ruined the system.