On Day 3, which was Wednesday, we had a city tour. Our agency coordinated a city tour for us with a local volunteer. We went down to the lobby at 10:30 to meet him. He arrived shortly after and introduced himself, Jong Geun Nam Gung. He said to just call him Ryan, that's his American name..... okay? We'd heard that he wanted to be our tour guide to learn more English. We set off walking down the main road there and ended up at Gyeongbokgung Palace. The name Gyeongbokgung translates into the "Palace of Shining Happiness".
This is "Ryan" our tour guide! Also, it was absolutely freezing out that day! The sun was nice, but the wind was bitter cold!
We also ran into a FB and Korean BB friend, Amy and her husband Patrick! So awesome to finally meet them!
There were some photos posted across the stress to help illustrate the South Koreas' fight for independence.
Next we took a taxi and went to Namdaemun market. This place was absolutely huge! I know we didn't cover but about a fourth of that place. It was kind of like a flea market, like Insadong, but way bigger and had more merchants. It was like a mall, meets a flea market, meets a sidwalk! 'Ryan also introduced us to some very authentic Korean food. Not sure what was in it, but it was good, or maybe I was just starving! Wished I had gotten a picture of it.
After leaving Nam market, we started walking and saw a few more sights.
Methodist chuch
Catholic church
Everywhere you turned there was a motorcycle or modped looking thing running all over the place. They weaved in and out of traffic, like it was nothing, and the light changes didn't effect them. It was crazy traffic!
Next we walked down further and came across a street that had a 7or 8 floor mall, more shops, I even saw a Foot Locker shoe store.
After ducking into the mall to warm up, we ended up walking down some more streets and Ryan took us to a little restaurant for some traditional Korean food.
Not a great picture, but we were sitting on the floor, and yes we had to take our shoes off at the doorway of the sitting area. The floor was heated and very hot, but it felt very good after being out in the cold all day! :)
Very interesting eating. We said we weren't real hungry, Ryan ordered something in Korean. After about 10 minutes the lady shows up with all this! It was good! After we ate some, we gave Ryan our gift for him and went outside. The tour was over, we exchanged emails and thanked him dearly for showing us around. At that point we were really tired. All I wanted to do was go back to the hotel, sit, and warm up!
That night we were really tired, again, and went to bed early maybe around 8:30 or 9. It was a great day, saw lots of sights, and enjoyed the day! Thanks Ryan!
