Pete and I went to Korea for a short trip. It's very cheap (under $400) for airfare and hotel for 3 nights, and it's quite a short flight. Why not, right?
We arrived at night and had a hell of a time finding the hotel. The reviews of the hotel online weren't exaggerating when they said it's hard to find. We ended up being in the complete wrong part of the area, though luckily some weird guy on a bike decided he wanted to practice English with us and helped us find the place. Admittedly, there was a little suspicion as to why he was being so nice to us...
The second day we did a lot of palace/temple sightseeing. When in asia...
One palace you can only enter via a guided tour. Unfortunately, the English tours are rather few and far between, so Pete's stroke of genius was to take a Japanese-language tour. It worked beautifully. Coincidentally, the day on which we took the tour also happened to be Independence Day in Korea...Independence from Japan. So during the tour, at one point our tour was waiting for another all-Korean tour to exit a certain area of the palace so we could fit in. The tension was rather tangible, as many of the Koreans exiting gave the Japanese group the evil eye. In true Japanese fashion, however, our group seemed completely clueless.
The next day we did more palace touring, this time in the rain.
Highlights: Check out the colorful painting that is clearly different than Japanese-style historical architecture. Also of note is the bowl of silkworm larvae that is supposedly a "popular street snack." I can't see how it can be popular, as I ate one and it was...unpalatable, to say the least. Without further ado, here you go!
