Gyeonbukgung, Daehak-ro, and makgeolli

After all the excitement of skiing and losing my wallet, I decided to take it a little easy last weekend and rented a movie Saturday night. I've also been fighting off a little cold for a few weeks, so I got some much-needed rest.

Sunday, I met my friend and her photography buddies at Gyeonbukgung Palace, which was first built in 1395, then restored in 1852, for a stroll around the palace grounds and some really good food. The palace is also connected to two museums -- the National Palace Museum and the National Folk Museum -- of which we visited the latter.

The palace was really beautiful, albeit freezing cold. After meandering about the palace grounds, then spending some time in the Folk Museum, we drove up a mountain to a small cafe.

Koreans spend so much time in cafes it's a little ridiculous. There are more than ten cafes within two minutes from my apartment. Throughout Korea, there are many types of cafes including dog and cat cafes where there are animals roaming around and you can buy food to entice them to play with you or just wonder about the sanitation quality of a dog cafe. Also, despite the overabundance of cafes, I've yet to see one empty -- in fact, most of the time they're quite full, illustrating my point that Koreans love cafes. Given how much the culture values community, I guess it shouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, we had some coffee/tea/hot chocolate, then spent way too long deciding where we should eat. My friend picked a famous burger place on Daehak-ro, which is a famous street in Seoul where one of the first universities was founded. It's now a strange melding of the past and present -- like much of Korea, and Seoul specifically. The restaurant was spectacular -- it even had a burger with gold leaf on it! My gold-less chicken sandwich was unbelievably good.

One way Korean "going out with friends" is different from American "going out with friends" is the constant moving of venues. In fact, they have specific words for this -- "ee-chon" means "second place," "sam-chon" means "third place," etc. -- which they will start saying/yelling when the current place starts losing its appeal. Our sam-chon was a makgeolli cafe. Oh, makgeolli.

Makgeolli is a traditional Korean rice wine that is white and milky, but tastes sweet. It's has a little more alcohol than your average beer, and is drank from small bowls or cups. The first time I had it, I was seriously grossed out, but it tends to grow on you, and there are many varieties to try (including the sweeter yellow kind pictured above with some delicious white kimchi).

It was a fun weekend, and I got plenty of rest for the week, which turned out to be a little crazy because my co-worker had the flu and was basically rendered useless all week. Hence, I ended up teaching a double load and only got sicker. Still, it was a good week, and today is my 6-month anniversary of being in Korea! I can't believe I'm already halfway through my contract! Time certainly flies.