Well we had our very first visitor this past weekend! A friend from Edmonton (who Brian also knew from T Bay) came to visit! He's currently working on the SE coast of Korea for a couple months and he made the trip up to Cheongju for the weekend.
Friday night we laid kind of low and decided to show him a bit of Cheongju. We had dinner at everyone's favorite Nepalese restaurant (Indian food), Hungry eyes. And then also ventured over to our favorite hang out, The Romantic Ethnic Bar. It ended up being a late night with some beverages consumed, but we made it home to get some sleep since we were going to set off for another Seoul adventure the next morning!
We got on the bus and had a surprisingly quick trip up to Seoul! No traffic jams this time thankfully! We decided to first hit up one of the Royal Palaces in Seoul, The Gyeongbokgung palace. We walked out of the subway and saw a sign for Free english tours and decided to take them up on the offer. However, the young boy at the stand informed us that the tour guide was in the bathroom, so we should just go ahead and he would find us. Well, needless to say we were a little doubtful... However, we had just paid for our tickets and had started walking into the palace when this little 13 year old boy came running up to us, out of breathe he said "I found you!" He was going to be our tour guide.
Danny, or DK was his nickname, volunteers for a group that gives free tours of the palace to English speaking people. In turn, he gets to put it on his resume and applications for college, because in Korea it is NEVER to early to be thinking about university! Danny gave us an awesome tour! He was FULL of information about the palace, and was constantly saying, "I bet you don't know...". He did get a bit lost in the palace (it was like a maze!) and a bit confused about where we were, but it was all part of his charm. He was distraught at the end of the tour because he had forgotten to show us the royal bedrooms! We assured him it was okay and he did a great job, and then the next thing we knew he was running off to find a tissue for his runny nose and we didn't see him again!
By this point all three of us were absolutely starving. So we decided to show Josh a true Korean BBQ. It was delicious! Josh needs a bit more work on his chopstick skills, but he got the hang of it!
After dinner it was getting a bit chilly out so we decided to find something that would be indoors. We ended up at the COEX mall. I'm still not sure why the boys thought it would be a good idea to take ME to a MALL, but they kept me in line and we didn't even end up going into 1 store! Instead we headed towards the aquarium. We were all a bit skeptical about the aquarium and if it would be worth shelling out the money for the entrance fee, but it turned out to be really neat and they had some cool animals!
By the end of our Aquarium tour, we were all wiped and ready to head home. We navigated the subway once more and then hopped on the bus. When we got back to Cheongju I had a splitting headache so the boys headed out for a couple of drinks on their own while I hit the hay early!
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