The Wanderer

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I did some wandering today. Erika slept late because she had been up late drinking with a couple of guys we met last night in the hostel, and I was up and about by 9:00am. I know, hard to believe!

Since she was still sound asleep, I decided to wander around the city a little bit, check out where the tour buses were supposed to leave from, and see if there was anything else of interest along the way, and always on the hunt for postcards.

I walked past the subway stop where we had been yesterday, saw the Pagoda Park, and kept on walking. Lo and behold, along my travels I found a Subway! (I mean the sandwich shop.) Amazing! I also found another 2 McDonalds, 2 more KFCs and 2 more Mr. Pizzas. I did find the tourist information booth as well, and discovered that at the City Bus Tour counter, the girl didn't really speak English. I managed to pick up a couple of brochures though, as well as a subway map of Seoul. I went by the bookstore where the guy running the hostel had said there would be postcards.... none. Made it back just in time for Erika to be waking from the dead.

We finally got our butts in gear and had lunch at..... SUBWAY! Nice to have a sandwich for a change! We also heard sirens and saw some fire trucks and ambulances and went to check out why. There was a fire in one of the buildings down the block! Strangely, even with the smoke billowing, a couple of the firefighters were going in with just pants and t-shirts, no protective gear. Weird. Then more fire trucks and ambulances showed up. Then more. And more. I think by the end of it there were 10 trucks and 5 ambulances for a fire that appeared to only be some smoke.

We set off for the tour bus meeting point and got there just before the bus took off. The buses ran the route every half hour, and we decided to stay on for the entire tour, and then take the next tour which was the palace tour. Not bad for 10 000 won. I got a few pictures from the window of the bus. We also found that there are a few more places we'd like to go back to, so that was good.

After the palace tour, we walked to a shopping area called Insadon. Crowded!!!! People everywhere and they walk as slow as snails. I tend to walk at a much quicker pace so I found that frustrating, as I did the constant pushing and walking right out in front of me. Especially when they just stop there! Found some cool souvenirs though, so I'm happy! 😊

And believe it or not, the temperature has come down a little bit -- no pools of water under my feet today from sweating! Overcast and about 25C -- not bad at all for walking around the city!

Tomorrow we're going to Suwon, the fortress city!

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