Honeymoon Summary, Part 3

After Ulsan, we had a day or two in Seoul before leaving for Bali...


Doksan Subway Station, where we met up with Cathy's cousin Haesoo and embarked on our journey for the day. After riding the CTA trains for over three years now, I almost expected Seoul's subways to be moderately rickety, mostly unreliable, painfully slow, and tragically odiferous. Thankfully my expectations were way off since I found that the trains were fast, reliable, and did not smell of sweaty socks.


Haesoo took us to Insadong, a large shopping district with lots of crafts and artwork. I have some nice photos of all that crap but more importantly, Insadong is home to a delicious mandu (dumpling) restaurant. Usually I eat bite-size dumplings with just a simple dipping sauce. At this restaurant we got a pot filled with homemade fist-sized dumplings, various meats, vegetables and mushrooms, tteok, noodles, and an egg in an onion which blossomed as the spicy broth simmered away. My mind? Blown.


After eating and exploring Insadong, we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. This particular soldier was clearly not historically accurate because he did not have a fake beard poorly glued onto his face like the others did.


National Treasure No. 224, Gyeonghoeru Hall at the Gyeongbokgung Palace. A stunning two-story open pavilion which the king would use when a gigantic ornate lakeside royal banquet hall was required, as is often the case.


I knew this was makgulri (rice wine) because the bottle said so. I drank a couple of these and then went to some wacky karaoke place with Cathy's aunt and uncle. True story.

Bali in the next post...