last night i went to bed at almost 2am. i got up around 5:30am, showered. i ate 2 slices of the soy milk based bread, and then i think 2 rolls of the no eggs/milk bread. then went to the airport around 6:10am. ate ramen at the airport restaurant. i had to take off my shoes and belt during the gate security check. i ate 2 more rolls of the no eggs/milk bread. i don't know what it was about today, but i was really hungry! i think my body knew i was leaving okinawa, so it got really hungry, but it didn't know that it wasn't going back to america, it was going to someplace even harder to eat as i would later find out. i didn't know there was going to be an in flight meal! it was practically all meat/fish. i ate the rice and fruit portions. there were 2 rows of rice. 1 row with black sesame seeds on top and 1 row with fish on top. i tried to eat only the sesame seeds rice. some of the fish got onto the sesame seeds rice so there was even less for me to eat. again, i don't know why i was so damn hungry. i guess 1 week of slightly starving does that to you. at every meal, i have not been eating until i was full. i have been leaving the table still hungry and it finally caught up to me.

i arrived in seoul and got through the airport quickly--from touchdown to seeing my brother waiting for me took 18 minutes. my brother said i beat his record of 20 minutes. i might have been 1-2 minutes faster if i had taken the flat escalator that airports have but i thought i needed the exercise and walked the whole way unassisted. again, what i didn't know was that i was going to do more than enough walking in korea. i told my brother about the food incident and that we should call to request a vegetarian meal for the return flight.

we bought tickets to ride a bus from the airport to seoul. as we waited for the bus, we looked at the tourist pamphlets available in the airport. there weren't very many interesting ones but there were many for visiting the dmz (border with north korea). if i was going to be staying in seoul for even 1 more day, i would have probably taken one of those tours but i simply don't have time for it. i only have 1 full day in korea and i want to see as many things as possible.

bus equipped with emergency hammer, for when children get out of hand

we rode the bus for about 1 hour to the hotel. the bus dropped off people at several hotels that were very close to each other before we got to our hotel, the lotte seoul hotel. we checked in and i was surprised that my brother wasn't speaking korean to the employee as things might go smoother in korean. instead the entire affair was conducted in english. we went to the room to find that it had only 1 queen size bed, not 2 doubles! my brother called the front desk and spoke english again. no double bed rooms available! 2 siblings in their 20s sleeping in the same bed? well we didn't want to think about it so we decided to immediately see the sights!

the view from our hotel room

the snack bar we never indulged in

korean mailbox

the first place we walked to was a tourist information center. it was pretty boring but we got a few more pamphlets. they had a big wooden puzzle for kids. it's the kind where a picture has been rearranged, the kind i am addicted to. immediately i could see what the problem was: 2 pieces were back-to-back in the wrong order. this is the most difficult situation to overcome in this type of puzzle. it's been awhile since i've played with these sort of things and since it was at an awkward upright angle where i had to hold onto all the pieces or else they would shift, i gave up on it rather quickly. i didn't come to korea to play puzzles after all! i think some of the people were smirking when they saw me playing with the puzzle. "americans are such children!", they probably thought. while we were looking at the pamphlets, one of the employees approached us in english and asked if we needed any help. i just pointed to my brother. i have no idea what i want to see or what kind of info i should be looking up! he started speaking korean to her and what followed would be repeated several times throughout this trip. he would speak korean and the other person would suddenly be surprised, but happily relieved. then what followed i interpreted by gesture as my brother never translated these conversations for me! i gathered that they would tell him his korean is good because he would do the slightly embarrassed shaking head no thing. then he would say that i am his sister. the other person would look shocked, then look back and forth at both of us. that sort of double take could only be from him saying that we're siblings. we're so opposite. he tries to blend into asianness and i just try to be myself--(a happy-go-lucky chap always) dressed in black, (fierce,) intimidating to approach.

then we walked and passed by a bank. we decided to go inside and exchange the yen our mother gave us for food and things into won. then we walked for awhile, passing the american embassy and onto gyeongbokgung palace. shortly after we arrived, there was the changing of the guards. i took some video footage of the ritual. then we walked around the palace grounds--it's a pretty huge place. it was really nice; made me think it must be a similar feel to the forbidden city. i took a lot of pictures. my brother explained all the buildings and features.

gyeongbokgung entrance gate

inside gyeongbokgung were echoes of the forbidden city

in front of what's on the back of the 10,000 won bill

anybody home?

my brother demonstrates how short the doors are

gorgeous! but my brother doesn't remember what this is for, something about nirvana

immediately after the palace are some statues and the folk museum. the statues are from all over korea to show various regional culture. we didn't go into the museum, maybe they were closed, i don't know.

statues from other parts of korea

statues from other parts of korea

statues of the animals of the chinese calendar

busy shopping street full of tourist things

then we walked to insadon and passed by all the shops without really going into any of them except a very expensive one my brother wanted to show me. this would set the trend for the rest of the trip. there were some smaller, cheap stores i thought about getting souvenir gifts at but my brother didn't seem interested in stopping. i was able to buy a pack of postcards at one of the shops. we were both starting to get hungry and my brother knew of a vegetarian restaurant close by. unfortunately, they were closed.

instead, we had tea at geongin center. as soon as we walked into that little area, i was overcome with the smell of cinnamon. the tea house we went into was a small place. it seemed like a place that young people like to hang out in. there was a lot of graffiti on the walls. my brother said that was normal in tea houses. hmm, i didn't quite believe that, maybe just the ones he goes to! most of the writing was in korean, but there was some japanese, english, and even french. i don't remember what kind of tea i had but i really like the cups. my brother said that's how korean tea cups are. i've got to get some back in LA at the korean stores. they're functionally smart. they're designed to hold loose leaf tea instead of the tea pot holding the tea. that's great if several people want to drink different types of tea. the table we were sitting at had a glass top with tons of drawings and other things inside that customers had left behind. i decided to insert my business card.

teahouse graffiti

we walked past all the same shops and decided to eat at a different vegetarian restaurant called sosim. we had what i think a typical korean meal is--lots of side dishes! we had rice with red beans, potato/sesame soup, side dishes: salad, spiced sesame leaves, spinach, tempura vegetables, spicy pickled radish, candied peanuts, etc. i didn't dare touch the kimchee. the radish was hot enough for me.

korean vegetarian food

as we were walking, i realized i'm an idiot as i forgot the papers i had printed out that contained places i wanted to see and restaurants i could eat at. my brother said he has a copy of the file in his computer. i told him the only place i really wanted to see was a museum that showcases digital/new media and it was at the top of the list.

we rode the subway back and went to the hotel room to rest for a few minutes. then we walked through lotte's department store, (clothes, electronics, the world's largest/ugliest chandelier), then through the huge food court. we attempted to go outside but it raining so we went back to ask for an umbrella at the lobby since my brother said they would give us one. one of the bellboys said that there is an umbrella in every hotel room. we went up to the room and sure enough, an umbrella was in the closet as well as gas masks in case the hotel is on fire. we walked around the myongdong area to look at all the stores without actually going into any of the stores. it was raining constantly and my left side was getting all wet. i saw a homeless begger who had no body. he was basically arms and head. he was in the middle of the street, inbetween the shops. my brother said he's a very famous beggar. must be like santa cruz, you can name all the homeless.

korean subway

we went back to the food court but it didn't look like there was actually anything that i could eat. i really wanted to try the korean vegetable pancake that i had read about on the internet when looking up vegetarian/vegan places to eat. one of the food vendors was selling it. my brother said it's called bindaetteok. the food court was interesting because for many of the food vendors, you don't order/pay directly with them. there's a central register that takes the orders/payments. my brother ordered for me, of course, but first he asked what ingredients are in the pancake. the employee went to ask the food vendor. when she came back, my brother told me there are only 3 ingredients and that i could eat it, but he never told me what those ingredients are. that's another good example of this trip, failure to fully interpret things for me. he would do a half-ass job and sometimes i think important information was left out. i guess i should have spoken up but i thought he just wanted to hurry up and order and he would tell me later on what the ingredients were. i'm going to guess potato, carrot, and something else. i could be so wrong.

korean pancake

then we went to go get my brother's things at his friend's place. he had been staying with them and pretty much all his stuff was still with them. we took the subway and it was still raining. i saw another homeless person sitting on the subway entrance/exit stairs, looking utterly in despair. i felt bad for him. i thought we were going to someone's house, that i would get to see a korean house. that there would be a house and a family and i would get a glimpse into what korean life is like. wrong. my brother's friends are two grown men in a very small apartment. my brother has so much shit. he had 2 huge suitcases, a printer in the box, and i think a shopping bag. my brother carried the umbrella in one hand and pulled 1 suitcase with the other hand. his friend did the same. i carried the other 2 items, no umbrella. "there's no way in hell i'm going to haul all this shit all over seoul in the rain and on the subway!", i thought. my brother must've been thinking the same thing. he hailed a cab but it took awhile for one to stop as few passed by and they were already occupied.

the driver had the windows down. i sat in the passenger seat. i didn't roll up the window because the air was so thick, i felt like i was going to pass out. i didn't like getting anymore wet by the rain but i really needed the fresh air. the driver had on the radio a bit loud for me. it sounded like he was listening to news broadcasts. at this point i was cranky and didn't want to hear anymore korean. i was about to explode. my mind was gone. i was tired.

we got into the hotel room and the air conditioning was on as usual. my brother said he wasn't cold so he kept it on. i was so cold and wet at this point and thought about taking a shower to get warm but i really just wanted to get dry so i crawled into bed to warm up around 10pm. yesterday i noticed that i was starting to get a blister on my left heel yesterday but now i have huge blisters on both heels. i'm also getting a smaller blister on one of my left foot's toes.