Hello everyone! Sorry I've been slacking on the blog this week...I started teaching my middle school night classes again, so I've been busy with that. Last Saturday Danny and I went to two more palaces. I posted photos on Picasa but I didn't get to write about them. Basically, they were so similar to Gyeongbokgung, which was the palace we visited last Friday. All three of the palaces were built during the same dynasty for the same family, which is why they were all built in the same style. Changdeokgung was the first palace we saw on Saturday, and we actually had a real tour guide for that one. At Gyeongbokgung the day before we had to rent these digital audio guides, because there was no English tour available. We definitely had a better experience with a real tour guide though. We were the only people on the English tour at Changgyeonggung, the second palace we visited that day. It was kind of awkward, but it was like having a private tour guide. That was the smallest palace we saw, because the Japanese destroyed much of it when they colonized South Korea. It was also the least preserved, but we appreciated it more for that reason. You could actually see the original paint and wood on the buildings, as opposed to the other palaces that were recently restored. We finished up Saturday with some royal ancestral tombs and Indian buffet in Itaewon :-)
Yesterday, I decided we should check out the Incheon Global Fair and Festival. It's an 80-day long fair in the new city of Incheon, which is trying to become this ideal city that is famous around the world. Incheon is two and half hours away from where we live, and it is the where the largest international airport in South Korea is. I heard rave reviews about the festival, and it sounded something like a modern-day version of American's 20th century Worlds Fair. The trip alone was tiring....it took us over 3 hours because we forgot to transfer on the subway. The size and presentation of the fair alone was impressive. But we felt like we missed alot because most the displays were written in Korean, so we obviously could not understand them. Also, the fair attempted to be "global" by introducing various food and culture from around the world. However, all of the "global" things about the fair were somehow Koreanized. The "Thai," "Indian," and "African" foods were made with Korean ingredients and tasted like Korean food. I guess in America I'm always exposed to other cultures. But Korea is so homogenous, so to them anything is else new and strange. There was an environmental theme running throughout the fair, which I appreciated. It seems as though Koreans are alot more conscious of environmental issues than we are. The new technology and urban-planning ideas that were featured at different expositions around the fair were so impressive. It was a shame that we couldn't read the information, but we got the jist from the visual displays. With all of the "global" food offered, we finished the day with some good Korean bibimbap and roasted chestnuts from a street stall. Photos from the event will be up soon! We are off to do some food shopping at Costco...anyung!
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