This blog is getting out of hand. What started of as just a personal diary to keep a few people back home updated on my travels has grown to something I never imagined. First of all, this is showing up in google searches. If you google image 'samarkand uzbekistan restaurant' the number 1 & 2 pics are my blog, and further down another pic. This explains why this is the no.1 most viewed pic on my blog.

Also, I was googling a festival, and pictures of my apartment from my blog showed up!. I was wondering why I was getting crazy ridiculous stats every month consistently around 1500 hits and this seems to explain it. I dont know how many of them are people actually reading my blog? My blog is also the no.1 result when you try 'celtic music flower dance' or 'friday prayers at itaewon mosque', because those stats were also high so I googled out of curiousity. I've given up on trying to keep this blog private so might as well go all out on blogging!

Not to belittle my blog, I have spent a lot of time travelling, researching, writing, and uploading pics from my travels and have gotten very strong feedback from the folks back in Toronto. Due to my writings and travels I was selected as a writer for the KoreaBlog website by KOCIS (Korean Culture and Information Service), for the Ministry of Culture Tourism and Sports, which included a guided tour of Cheong Wa Dae (The Korean Presidential Palace) as part of the welcoming ceremonies.

This event was being held on a weekday in seoul which meant I would have to take a day off school. After advising the school I would need a day off, and for what for, they were very surprised, as was I, that I was being invited to the Korean Presidential Palace. The Vice Principal was kind enough to say the school would pay for my return KTX train ticket, about $75 since this was a 'business trip'. I later found out they even phoned the ministry to find out about this event. She has been to the Palace three times and has even met the President.

Not to pass up on the opportunity of some publicity for the school, they also contacted the board of education and the local palgong newspaper. I had an interview conducted with the Palgong Newspaper, with my co-teacher interpreting, and the Vice Principal present. Since I had 'lied' to get the time off to goto Japan with a 'fake' seoul itinerary, the vice principal was keen to interrupt during my interview to point out that I had just gone to seoul, when I was listing some of my recent travels to the journalist! (see articles in earlier entry)

Now everyone wants to look at my blog and I'm reluctant to give the address in the newspaper or show everyone at school. I dont think i've said anything really bad about anyone, try not to deliberately talk about anyone or use facepics, but there still can be cultural misunderstandings with my style of writing and humour.

For the trip I left home at 6.40am. It takes me over an hour to get to Dongdaegu train station, longer on weekdays with rush hour traffic. I wanted to give myself enough time for the 8.17 train. This is my first time back to Seoul since I first went during the Chuseuk holiday end of September. There is a different weather pocket there as after we left Daejeon which is halfway, there was lots of mist and fog. The total journey is 1hr 50 mins on the 300km high speed train.

From there I remembered which bus to take since my hotel last time was in the same area. I know I had some money left on my Seoul bus card but after I tapped it the remaining balance was only .40 cents so I'd have to top it up before I left. The meeting place at 11am was the Korean Overseas Information Office behind Gyeongbokgung Palace.

I arrived and some people were waiting in a meeting room. After introductions they started giving each other their business cards. I'm wondering why do bloggers have business cards and am I the only one that doesn't have one?? Then they asked me for my banking info to reimburse me for the train ticket (even though my school had paid for it!).

Afterwards we went into the conference room and they had arranged seating with our names. I was seated at the front of the table. They then awarded each of us a Notice of Appointment on behalf of KOCIS the organizers. I was first based on the seating. After that we did individual introductions. Again they started with me based on seating so I was a bit stumped having to go first.

I introduced myself, where I'm from, what I do. Then they wanted me to talk about the KoreaBlog initiative and I didnt know what to say being the first person. So I said it was a good idea since China and Japan are big cultural giants beside them that draw the media attention and tourism, so it was a good idea for tiny korea to push its way forward and showcase itself to a wider audience.

Then the Director of KOCIS spoke and he was very glad to see someone from Daegu, his hometown. Practically everyone was from Seoul, three girls were from Daejeon, halfway down from Seoul to Daegu on the KTX line. I had travelled the furthest, and was the only one from Daegu. There was nobody from Busan or any other cities south of Seoul. This is good as it gives me a writing advantage covering the rich cultural aspects of the southeast, whereas the Seoul metropolis is saturated with too many bloggers.

After that we walked over to a restaurant beside CheongWaDae, the Presidential Palace, for bibimbab lunch. Beside there was a Presidential Museum. In one part you could stand infront of a blue screen and they superimpose your picture next to the president and first lady. They took mine wrong while everyone else's was perfect. You type your email address into the screen so I didnt see it till I got home. After that you can sit at the Presidential Desk and have your photos taken.

Next was the actual CheonWaDae Presidential Complex tour. This was like the DMZ tour that I done earlier, in that there was very strict security. We had to show our passports and the organizers needed our passport numbers earlier to register us. They then take us in a bus into the complex, even though it was right in front of us and we could have walked. Once inside you go thru airport style security. They made me drink my water bottle to see if it was ok.

Inside, first there is a small auditorium to watch a movie narrated by the president. He welcomes us and gives us a tour of the complex. We got to see inside many of the state and reception rooms during the movie. I hoped these would actually be part of the tour. Next they escort us out onto the grounds.

Security is very tight and they were very strict about crowd control, keeping us together, and very strict about taking photos, even though its just the grounds and hardly a security threat. They showed us a 160 year old tree, and a smaller one planted by the current president. After walking around the grounds we could see the Official Residence from a distance.

Later they took us to the Presidential Palace. The interior looked like a european style palace with giant chandaliers, but we could only peer thru the windows. Again they were being very strict about photography. At one point I took a pic of the crowd listening to the guide, I figured that would be ok since it was just people. The guard came over and watched while I had to delete the pic.

The group was very diverse. We had people originally from Italy and the Phillipines now living in Korea, and exchange students from Singapore, Uzbekistan, and Spain. I thought it would just be foreign teachers. One guy had been in korea 11 years and I noticed the seoul people had much higher level of korean as they have more opportunities for language classes than we do in daegu. A few were very fluent in korean. There was a girl from Bathurst/St Clair in Toronto so we were practically neighbours with me living Bathurst/King. There were three girls from Daejeon, halfway to Daegu on the train line, so I took the train back with two of them.

Along with the Notice of Appointment, we were given a pair of CheongWaDae mugs during the tour then KOCIS had a gift bag with more goodies at the end. Coming home I took a cab from Daegu station as it had been a very long day leaving home at 6.40am. I arrived back after 7pm. Overall it was a good and worthwhile trip. I believe the tour is free but you have to book ahead using your passport and bring it when you come. I'll go back to the museum to take my blue screen presidential pic again as there are no reservations/security issues to go there.

My opening remarks at the reception actually ended up being quoted in the web article on the event http://korea.net/news.do?mode=detail&am p;guid=54103

This weekend am heading to Gyeongju for the Shilla Dynasty Theme Park