Saturday At the Movies

It is Saturday night here in Seoul. It is close to 9:00 PM and I will be going to bed soon. Tomorrow I will leave on a bus for the area known as the DMZ. Tomorrow evening when I blog, I will have more to say about that, but I am pretty ignorant about the DMZ right now. It will be a learning experience. What I do know is this: Very strict dress restrictions are in place for visitors to the "Zone". No shorts, or short skirts,jeans, short sleeved shirts or tank tops and no clothes that have anything to do with uniforms or military style. Doesn't that make you curious?

Today was absolutely amazing. I started out at Korea University and learned about Korean film. We all watched a film titled, "My Heart". It was about a Korean woman who turned 16 in the 1920s. She was married to a very young boy and went to live with his family. She was treated badly by her mother-in-law. Later she was divorced by her husband because she had never had a child. In that time a husband could divorce a woman for not giving him a son. As the movie continues you see how her spirit grows strong in adversity. It is a movie that made it much easier for me to understand the culture and expectations of women in previous generations.

After a very long bus ride to an ancient part of Seoul called Insadong, the entire group of us ate at a beautiful, traditional Korean restaurant. If my camera battery charges before I go to bed I will have a picture of the place in the blog.

Then, we were turned out for 1 hour and 20 minutes to shop in the many old shops all over the area of Insadong. I bought some gifts that were very unusual. The prices were very affordable

here, different than last summer in Japan.

From Insadong we traveled by bus to Changdeokgung Palace. This beautiful Palace was built in the 1400's and was burned and destroyed by the Japanese during the invasion of 1592-1598. It was left in ruins until 1608 because it was thought to be a place that had bad omens. When it was rebuilt it was used by the royal family continuously until 1968 when the last member of the family died there. The Palace is located on hundreds of acres so we did a lot of walking.

When I first passed through the gate and saw the huge building where the ceremonies took place it took my breath away. It was so beautiful and so huge. Unfortunately my battery in my camera was dead, so I didn't get any pictures of the Palace. However, it is very famous and has been named a World Heritage site by UNESCO. So, anyone who wants to see what the Palace looks like needs only to type the name in their browser and I'm sure you will find many pictures of this beautiful palace.

Next we went to dinner. Doesn't it seem like we eat a lot? Well, we do. And tonight's dinner was the best yet. Everything was prepared for us in a deep pot on the table . There was thinly sliced beef and many kinds of vegetables along with long stemmed mushrooms. It bubbled and steamed until one of the servers dished it out into our bowls for us.

We were supposed to go to a concert after, but there are huge protests going on here over the President's relationship with the U.S. Every street we turned down was blocked by the police who were trying to contain the protesters in a certain area. It was a very peaceful looking demonstration, but it was something else to try to get around it and back to our hotel.

This sign proclaims: We serve only Australian Beef

Next entry will be about the Demilitarized Zone