Final Days in Seoul

Thursday, Aug. 25 (Continued)

I went out about 10:45 while it was not raining and walked to Changgyeonggung Palace. It is not as imposrtant as the other palaces I have visited, but it was better in one respect. The main ceremonial building dates from 1616, whereas the buildings at the others were rebuilt in the 1800s and 1900s. There is a footbridge connecting this palace to Jongmyo Shrine, a set of buildings from the late 1300s/early 1400s holding Confucian spirit tabliets for former rulers. It began raining again soon after I arrived at the palace, so I toured the parklike grounds of it and the shrine while carrying my umbrella.

A large market area is east of the shrine, so I walked there. Kwangjung Market is clean with a wide walkway covered with a glass awning. As I walked along, I came to lots of food stalls in the centers of the aisles. I stopped to watch a woman frying large, flat patties. A man approached me and asked if I wanted a taste. he went to a platter of cut pieces, stuck a stick into one, handed it to me, and motioned that I should dip it in a soy sauce with chopped onions. It was delicious. I checked all the other stalls. Then I returned to there. A customer motioned for me to sit and told the woman to serve me. She put an 8-inch (20 cm) pattie on her griddle and browned it. She cut it into about 12 chunks, placed them on a foil-covered tray, and put it in front of me with a dish of the soy sauce with chopped onion. I'm not sure of everything that ws in the pancake. It had shredded potatoes, I think, and what looked like chopped chives. There were pink spots which may have been pork. It tasted much like the inside of Chinese pork dumplings. I ate it all, and paid her the 200 won ($1.97) she requested, and walked away ahppy and full.

I went further east to Dongdaemun Market, but there was nothing I wanted to really see. It was a market with specialty shops clustered together. Arne would have enjoyed the kitchen shops. One shop specialized only in inserts--shoe inserts and bra inserts!

I returned to the room and watched a film that had just started. It may have been entitled Alcatrez. It starred Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. It was another mainstream film I've missed in the past. As I have explained to friends before, one reason I tend to see only foreign and independent films at theaters is that I have plenty of opportunities to see mainstream films on TV in hotels while traveling.
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I went out again in the late afternoon. I walked down Insadong-Gil, a street with many art galleries. Because of the cloudy weather, it was easy to see inside the windows and enjoy the artwork. My favorites were some silk prints and some string art forming geometric shapes on the outside of a box frame that had geometric shapes painted on the inside canvas.

I also wandered some of the back streets there. They have very atmospheric restaurants, tea rooms, etc. Then I wandered westward to Jongyesa Temple, a Buddhist temple. It was completely covered in a steel-framed restoration protection, and the front courtyard is also under recnstruction. Entering, however, I could see the ornate woodwork of the exterior. And inside looked untouched for ages.

On the way back to the room, I bought a ham-onion-cheese pastry and an almond and cream filled ring pastry at a bakery in the underground station near my hotel. I took them back to the room for dinner.

Changgyeonggung Palace/Jongmyo Shrine 1000 won
Lunch 2000
Pastries 5300
Total: 8300 won = $8.18