Seoul highlights

We're finally in Chiang Mai!  After a short flight, a very long flight, a long and fun layover (see below), and a somewhat less long flight, we arrived here last night, exhausted.  Today was not a super active day, so I won't talk too much about it (I'll probably summarize for both today and tomorrow in the next post).  Yesterday, though, was highly active, since it was our 12-hour layover in Seoul.

Mu, Amy, and I at the South Gate, where we entered

We got here at 6 in the morning and were hoping to leave our stuff, get breakfast, and head into the city.  I had read that Ichneon Airport is a great place to have a transfer, since it's equipped with everything you might want, so I had pretty high expectations.  It...did not entirely live up to them, though that was partially our fault.  It turned out that in order to access a lot of the services, we had to go through the transfer process, which involved security and giving up our water bottles yet again.  Since we didn't do that, we ended up exiting through immigration, which was OK, but less clear.  Then, when we tried to take the train into Seoul, it was not clear how to get the express train and we spent some time meandering in confusion.  We ended up on the all-stop train in the end, but it only took 10 minutes longer, so it was unclear what the benefit of the express really would've been.  I'm hoping that now we have a better idea of how the airport and transfer things works, so our next layover will go more smoothly.

The band.  Note the snow!

Anyways, we finally arrived at the Seoul station and met up with Amy and her friend Jeff, who's also a teacher in the same small town that she lives in.  They had a whole itinerary planned for us, so off we went!  The first stop was one of several palaces in Seoul.  This one had been the main residence of the king, and (we later learned) was in a good location because there were mountains on multiple sides.  The mountain that loomed to the North is particularly important now, since that's where the current president of South Korea lives.  The complex of the palace is surrounded by a wall and there are elaborate gates in each cardinal direction.

This guard just looks so thrilled, doesn't he?

Most of what's open to the public is outside, and it was snowing (and continued to snow pretty much all day), so we decided to forgo touring the grounds.  We did, however, watch the changing of the guards ceremony.  For some reason, those are always so elaborate and ridiculous!  This one was no different.  The guards were dressed in fancy dress-like outfits, and there was essentially a marching band preceding their entrance.  The guards themselves carried weapons (crossbows and swords and such), as well as elaborately painted shields. They also had flags (standards?).  After they were done with the whole thing, people were allowed to take pictures with them.  They didn't seem super enthusiastic about any of this, but they must be used to it!  You'd think so, at least.

I like the old streets with the skyscrapers in the background.

After the palace visit (and a much-needed coffee break), we meandered to an older part of the city which is still maintained in the style of a traditional village.  The houses have wooden roofs and the walls have to be made of traditional materials.  We actually talked with a random local (who turned out to be a psychologist and an art studio owner) who told us that for several years in the 90s, the government stopped enforcing that rule, so there's a section where many houses look a little different.  However, most of the area still looks pretty old.  We wandered around there a bit and then moved on to Seoul Tower.

It's hard to see, but SF is about 9100km away.

Seoul Tower is basically a very tall tower with a very good view (except that it was pretty foggy).  We took a cable car up to it and then spent some time wandering around inside, looking at Seoul in all directions.  It definitely would've been better on a clear day, but it was still cool to see.  The windows also had locations and distances written on them (as in, how far it was from that location to other big cities in the world), and of course, Mu and I had to document our distance from San Francisco. :)

Amy and Jeff at lunch

After taking the cable car back down, it was time for food and then the cat cafe!  Amy and Jeff took us to a Korean BBQ place so that we could have an authentic experience, complete with a bossy lady who scolded us for wanting to eat our meat too soon, before it was (in her opinion) properly cooked.  Apparently, this is just part of the process.  Thus fed, we went to the place I'd been looking forward to the most -- the cat cafe!

Kitties everywhere!

I think you have to see photos to really get the cat cafe, so I won't say much about it and you can just see several pictures at the end of the post.  Basically, you came in, paid an admission fee that includes a drink, and got to socialize with tons of adorable kitties!  They were everywhere, and they were super friendly for the most part, including one that came over and hung out on Mu's lap for a little while.  You could also buy fish to feed them (we didn't, we just didn't have that much time), and there were kitty toys to play with.  It was hugely adorable and I want one to exist in SF!

This one chilled at our table for a bit

I didn't really want to leave the cat cafe, but of course, we had to get to the airport to catch our flight to Chiang Mai (which left the gate on time and then hung out for 1.5 hours, waiting to be de-iced, de-icing, and then waiting to be allowed to leave.  Sigh.).  We had a really great day in Seoul and it was so lucky to have friends there!  Thank you, Amy and Jeff, for taking us around!

This one decided that Mu's lap was the place to be.

This one looks like Walnut!