So we had the whole day in Seoul, Korea. Colby and Ben decided that they wanted to hang around the hotel for the day, while Mike and I decided that we would find out from the concierge how to get to downtown Seoul to do some sightseeing. We found out that it was pretty easy - take the hotel shuttle bus back to Incheon airport, runs every 15 minutes; catch the 601-2 bus to downtown, it stops at door 12A and runs every 20 minutes; get off at Gyeongbokgung station downtown. The trip would cost 8000 won, or about $8, and take about an hour each way. We set out at about 8 am, armed with our map and about 90,000 won, on our adventure in Korea.We got downtown about 9:45 and headed for the Gyeongbokgung palace, about a 5 minute walk from the bus station. It was a partly overcast day, but it was very warm and very humid. About 85 F and it felt like about 115% humidity. Hey, we're from Seattle and not well-adjusted to humidity!
Mike and I spent about an hour walking around the Gyeongbokgung palace, which was originally built in 1394 and was the home of many of the kings of the Joseon dynasty in Korea. Much of the palace has had to be reconstructed, since it was destroyed or damaged at various times in the past. The reconstruction is ongoing, but the parts of the palace that have been restored are quite impressive.
The Joseon Dynasty Gyeongbokgung palace entrance in Seoul, Korea. The palace grounds cover about 4 million square feet and at one time included 330 buildings surrounded by a protective wall.
The tall-spire that sits atop the National Folk Museum of Korea, which is inside the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul Korea.
After wearing ourselves out walking around in the hot, bright sun at the palace grounds, we set off for the Insadong-gil shopping area. This is a street a few blocks away from the palace grounds that is packed with shops of all sorts, including antiques, paper/brush/ink, souvenirs, clothes, ceramics, and also restaurants and street vendors. We wandered for awhile finding some trinkets, some food and a lot of overwhelming sights and sounds.
One of the narrow side alleys along Insadong-gil that is packed with stores and restaurants and plastered with signs in Korean. Many of the signs in a Seoul also had the Korean words written in English lettering and many even included translations in English!
Compared to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Seoul has a rather overwhelming number of cars and people and nearly unbearable heat and humidity. There are retail shops of every kind all up and down the streets. There are also large apartment buildings clustered together throughout the city.
By about 1:30 we were pretty wiped out and decided to head back to the airport/hotel to retrieve our carry-on bags and check in for our flight. We caught the return airport bus, shuttled back to the Hyatt and then back to the airport, found the correct check in line, checked in, went through security, customs and immigration control and were to our gate by about 4 pm.
The rest of the trip was downhill....We caught our flight a little after 7 pm on Thursday, August 23, flew for about 10 hours and landed in Seattle at 12:53 pm on Thursday, August 23 - before w e left! Since we didn't have the samples, clearing US Customs was a breeze.
We had all anticipated needing to take samples to the University of Washington and dealing with their storage, etc, so Mike and I hadn't made a plan for getting back to Bellingham, since we hadn't known if we would be freed up to leave right away. So we went ahead and stayed at friends' in Seattle for the night and then called a taxi to take us and our retrieved checked baggage (that had been waiting in Seattle at the U for us) BACK to the airport on Friday morning so that we could catch the Airport Shuttle back to Bellingham.
I've had many homes this summer - a hotel room, a 2-room apartment, a ship's cabin, a tent in a field camp ... but finally, today, Friday, August 24, at about 11 am, a full 64 hours after leaving the apartment in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ... I was REALLY home. And I was well-greeted by two VERY happy and wriggly dogs!
Misty