Day One in Seoul

Yesterday afternoon I made it all safe and sound to Seoul. The flight ended up going pretty quickly and didn't seem like it was fifteen hours at all. I only managed a couple of hours of sleep, but did get to watch a few movies.

After checking in at my hostel, I wandered around a little at the Namdaemun Market across the street. It was interesting, but nothing too exciting. Getting a bite to eat later on turned out to be quite the affair though. I figured if a place had English written on the front window they'd at least have an English menu. Apparently I was wrong. I ended up pointing at things in my guidebook in the hope they'd have it. All I got was a bunch of no's and a disgusted look from the waitress until I pointed at the neighboring table and said beer. She understood that and even brought me a free bowl of popcorn. My first Korean meal, popcorn and beer. Mmm.

This morning I headed out first for the Gyeongbukgong Palace. It was one of the principal palaces for Korean kings starting sometime around the 1300's. After that I headed over to check out Cheongwadae, the Korean version of the White House.

From there I decided to wander over to another palace, but before I could get there I saw a sign pointing the way to what may very well be the most hilariously named museum ever, the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art. It turned out to be rather disappointing, especially compared to what I was picturing in my head, but it did end up being pretty entertaining.

I think I may have been the only person to come in all morning, based on the excitement level of the staff and even got a personal tour thrown in. If nothing else, it was informative. Did anyone know there are five virtues to the chicken? Me neither until today. Or that the chicken is the national bird of France? I didn't, but it that fact does seem like a gimme. My tour lasted the better part of 20 minutes or so and they even asked me to sign the guestbook when I left. I did and under the comments section I somehow held off on adding, "Best chicken museum ever!!" I figured they would have been insulted.

So with that being the highlight of any day in Seoul, I wandered around and checked out a couple of other sights including a Buddhist temple. I'm back at the airport now and head out in about an hour to Ulan Baatar. They said there's a possibility of my flight being delayed, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something on time. Talk to you all from Mongolia.