Fordy's visit - week 2!!!

Hello again and thank you to everyone who is reading, it does mean a lot. So the second week kicked off with me and Mum going downtown and then going to Suseong Lake, which was beautiful!!!! It was a gorgeous day, not like the previous one.









We even got to ride on the swans, but because Koreans like to be white and stay out of the sun , the swans have roofs on  which was a bit strange:

There was also this really cool restaurant that was a plane that you can see in the background here:
(we had to take a picture for my brother who is a pilot)





After this we went with some of my friends to up Apsan which is part of the Polgangsan Mountain; it is the side with the cable cars going up.

After this we went downtown for BBQ and to the cupcake shop which was amazing!!!

So on Monday we had quite a chilled day and met up with a friend of mine for Paris Baguette and also bed bar. Then we also went for lovely ice-cream and saw this:

Can it get any better?!

We also went on this bus restaurant but then evacuated when we saw chicken feet on  the menu, but the place is quite cool:

That's right, he's wearing a boiler suit!

I also must tell you about Mum and her accidental bartering skills. If you think I am indecisive then you haven't witnessed Mum's epic dithering! Anyway when she was in town on her own she wanted some shoes and couldn't make her mind up. Well the salesman thought this was all a tactic to get a lower price, so it kind of went like this:

Salesman: 70,000

Mum: ooo I don't know.

Salesman: 60,000

Mum: I'm not sure I'm going to come back.

Salesman: 50,000

And so on and I think she may have got them to 30 or 35 thousand! Genius accidental haggling! Then this day she got a little more confident and haggled purposefully and did very well!!! Later on the evening we just got a pizza from one of my regulars called Pizza School and watched some TV.

On Tuesday morning we were up and out on our way to Gyeong-ju, which is a beautiful place about an hour away on the train, where there are lots of touristy things to see. Before we even got there I was having a ball as I stumbled across another amazing inventions used by the Koreans. We got to our seats and there were four women sat facing each other, well they stared to move which I felt bad about because we didn't need four seats facing each other... then it happened... woman just turned round two of the seats so there were only two seats? I felt the need to take a video (please ignore all the kerfuffle at the beginning and end of the video):

After the thrilling train ride we got there and went to some tombs:

Daereungwon Royal Tombs

Cheomseongdae Observatory

Then after seeing the tombs we went to see the observatory, which
was really funny because you can see it from the path but you can splash out and pay 25p to go a bit closer.

Gyeongju is famous for this yellow flower, and there was a field of them just in front of the forest. I felt like Dorothy in a parallel universe.

We later ventured to the National Museum, which was great! We had the best guide, and although he was a little inappropriate, he was very friendly!

At the museum was this beautiful big bell, and when I showed the kids at school they informed of an old folk tale that is connected to this bell. This tale was about a religious woman who loved her God so much she wanted to sacrifice her own child. She melted her baby girl and formed a bell, and when the bell rings it is supposed to make the sound 'Emilae'. This is similar to the sound of the baby crying, and so this is the name of the bell.

This is Anapji Pond, and me and Mum got to see it both during the day and at night. It used to be a palace for royalty, but now only three building are left. You can see models of what it used to look like and even now you can see where the courtyards were.

We were picked up from Anapji Pond by a man who only spoke Korean, who was to take us to a traditional hotel that we had booked. He then drove us 30 minutes up a mountain!! This was a little scary when thoughts such as 'is this the right man' pop into your head! However, it was the right man and we got there safely, it was pitch black with no other building around apart from our hotel. You could hear a constant noise of frogs croaking in the background. We got settled into our room and 'traditional' was no lie! As you see we slept on the floor... that is until we were passing out with the heat as the lady left the underfloor heating on! It was only 11 at night and we couldn't have stayed there all night. So I rang the number I had on the details and just said 'hot, hot, it's too hot'! We literally could not sit in the floor because our bums were burning! The lady comes in and touches the floor and looks very confused as to why the strange foreigners had a problem with their backsides being toasted. Anyway, being the genuinely lovely lady she was, she moved us to a cooler room that wasn't entirely ready for visitors as we could tell by a pair of her socks being left in there to dry. This room was a family sized room that felt a little less traditional due to the TV:

Next to the TV is the bedding we used, see how the pillows are long and thin. They were quite hard but felt almost like a bean bag. The lady woke us up with some milk and bread with a sweet substance on, that I am still not entirely sure what it was.

First room

     
 When we got home and unpacked a pulled out an unfamiliar pair of socks that were not mine or Mums!!!Fordy had only gone and accidentally stolen the woman's socks!!!!!

Before we got home and realized we were thieves, we had a great day in Gyeong-ju despite the rain. First we got dropped off at Seokgulam Grotto, where there was a beautiful big  gold Buddha inside a hill  that you could see when you went inside the grotto. Unfortunately you were not allowed to take photos which was a shame as Mum said it was the most impressive thing she saw.  Then we had a lovely walk to Bulguksa Temple which was also very impressive and is apparently the best temple.

There were monks doing their prayers with the gongs and incense while we were walking around. After seeing the temple we went to the folkcraft village and Mum bought me a gorgeous fan and a ceramic turtle  to put incense sticks in. Then we headed back home on the fabulous KTX train. On the Thursday me and Mum and the guys from work went for a traditional course meal at a place whose name translated to 'the inner scent'. There were sssoooo many courses, we were all so full!!!!We were sat in our own little room with a sliding door which was very private.

On the Friday we were off to Seoul, the bright lights of the big city!!!So when we get to the hotel we are in the grand suite, the room was huge and we had a living room section as well as the bedroom. We also had a very fancy toilet with lots of buttons and a heated seat!Mum was playing with the buttons and the toilet started making funny noises and mum bent down and lifted the lid, which resulted in this:

The bede was apparently in full working order and had washed Mum's t-shirt for her!!!! We were hysterical!

So then we went to In-sa-dong which is the traditional shopping district and got presents for people.









The next day we went on the city tour bus and then to to Gyeongbukgong, which is the biggest palace.

 The pictures with us and stone statues is us with our zodiac animals, I am a snake and Mum is a rat. This was just out side the folk museum which was really interesting. After this we went to the traditional village and saw some traditional homes that were very similar to the hotel where we stayed in Gyeong-ju. There was also a band with traditional instruments warming up for a performance when we were there:

 Then we went back to In-Sa-Dong and had a lovely meal:

 Then unfortunately it was time for bed and Mum left for merry old England the next morning, just after a last dunkin donuts. That concludes Mum's visit! Thanks for visiting Mum, I had a great time and miss you!