Mountain climbing in Seoul- April 12.

One drawback of sleeping on a heated floor is that it can get pretty warm.  We slept with our bedroom window open all winter long in DC this this year, so it's clear I like a cold room.  So at 5:30 am, i gave up on sleep and went out for a walk.  

 It was a lovely, clear morning as I set out on a walk around Bukchon.

 I never got tired of this view of the city.

 And snapped a this quick shot after I walked past another early riser.

 At the edge of the elevated neighborhood, there's another good view of the palace.

 The house with the white lined roof is the Blue house, where the President lives.

 I told you the neighborhood was elevated.  I took the stairs down with the intention of walking toward the Blue House, but got distracted by a park.  

 This park was frequented by a ton of early walkers and joggers and was beautifully maintained.

 Only 400 meters to the top of the mountain?  I might as well give it a look.

 I didn't realize it was 400 m straight up!  At least there were stairs that followed the old city walls.

At the top, I climbed a rock and marveled that I climbed a mountain before 8am!

 

Then I marveled being in a country with incredible cell phone coverage and posted a picture to Facebook that led everyone to believe that I'd wandered into North Korea and would be kidnapped at any moment.  (North Korea is at least 60 miles north of the city.)

Halfway down the path, I came upon a natural spring with drinking cups.  In Korea, everything seems to be a sign of longevity or wealth, so i didn't want to pass up some good fortune.  

 

So I posted to Facebook that i was drinking the water to freak my mom out some more.  

I wanted to walk down the east side of the mountain and walk back to my neighborhood, but i ended up taking a path down the north side and walked straight into a Buddhist Temple.

Even the rinky-dink little Buddhist temples look cool.  Luckily, I was still in the more technologically advanced country in the world and my GPS got me back on track and I eventually made it back to my guesthouse.  I got back before 10 and calculated I walked a little over 11 miles.   

 But there was no time for a nap, because I had to pack up my little room. 

And say goodbye to my little guesthouse.

 Because I was moving over to the Sheraton with my friend Sara, who had just arrived in town.

 Sara instigated this whole trip.  She is constantly traveling for her work and offered up her room if I ever wanted to tag along.  Lucky for me!  We dropped off my stuff in her executive suite on the top floor (a big jump from sleeping on the floor) and took off to do some exploring.

We had a adventure in Dongdaemun Market, where we found a tucked away little place serving food that didn't want to serve us because no one spoke English.  But we convinced them through a series of hand gestures and refusals to get up that we'd eat whatever they had.  I'm glad we stayed because we had the best stew cooked right at our table full of whole fish, shrimp and who knows what else.  

After that, we wandered into Lotte- the Walmart of Korea, which was amazing.  Then we finally found Siloam Jimjilbang- a Korean spa wear you're issued a get of baggy shorts and a t-shirt and you spend a lot of time laying in 120 degree saunas on top of piles of jade rocks.  We even spent a few minutes in one room that was 220 degrees, by our rough calculations from Celsius to Fahrenheit.  

Bukchon Village.

I had another tour lined up for Thursday.

 This tour was of Bukchon Hanok Village, where I was staying.

 My guide, Cho Hee Wang, was very passionate about the preservation of the village.  He showed me place where the water from the palace used to run off and the people who lived here would wash their dishes.

 Hee Wang was not so pleased about a mural like this.

 One interesting spot was an area where a very popular Korean drama was filmed.  Apparently, the Japanese LOVE K-dramas, and flocked to this house.

 I wish I would have bought a souvenir, especially of the Korean Harry Potter up there.

 After seeing that they elicited this kind of enthusiasm, I made it a point to start watching some of these K-dramas.  And even in a foreign language, they were pretty entertaining.

 All of Seoul is hilly, but Bukchon is situated in an especially steep part of town.

 Even the "Be Quiet" signs are cute in Korea.

 Here's a view from the top.  This was easily my favorite part of the city.

 We cut down a side street to walk to what looked like the edge of the mountain.

 Indeed, it did drop off quickly and you had to take some very steep stairs down to get to another part of town.

After my tour ended, I had some lunch and headed back to my guesthouse because it was cold, dreary, and snowing.  Come on, snow in April?  Where was I- Wisconsin?  The heated floor in my hanok did feel pretty good, though.

 Determined to not lose a moment more of my vacation to bad weather, I set out back around the village to visit some of the traditional artist's workshops that are common.  In this one, I learned how to make traditional Korean knots and made a bracelet for June.

 This friendly guy talked to me for a while about gold-leafing.

 And I spent a long time at the embroidery museum.

 After a crummy afternoon, the weather cleared and I headed out for a long walk.  I came upon Tapgol Park, just as it was about to close.  I did get to see the Wongaksa Pagoda, a ten-storied marble pagoda that was built in 1467 on the site of a Buddist temple that no longer exists.  This pagoda was declared National Treasure No. 2.  (Number 1 is Namdaemun Gate- the gate that has it's own lego model and was burned down by arsonists in 2008.) 

I walked down Jong-ro and watched everyone come out of work and counted all the American fast food chains.  (They are all there.) Despite my instance to only eat Korean food, I did give in when I saw the one restaurant we did eat at in India- Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I think India did KFC better, but my Zinger Burger and fries were still pretty good.  

Only a little over 11,000 km back to DC?  That doesn't seem so far.

I hug around until nightfall at Cheonggyecheon River so I could take a night bus tour of the city. 

I didn't get any good pictures from the moving bus, but I didn't get to see all of the bridges that cross the Han river lit up, which was pretty cool.

As I walked back to the metro station, I was surprised that the streets were still as crowded with people as they were at 6pm.  Seoul never slows down.