Hi there,

Today was the Seoul City Tour. This costs 40,000 krw and it includes lunch, transportation, and the entrance fees. In this tour we went to Gyenbokgung Palace, it is a pretty place but much of it looks similar, Insadong for lunch and shopping, and Nansa. Nansa is a food and comedy show which is mostly nonverbal. The actors are all very talented in chopping food and are also quite athletic. It was an interesting show.

Some things I didn't expect in Korea: the food is much more fried, greasy, and oily than I thought it would be. There are many western influences in the food and shops in Korea, not that many people speak English, and anywhere you go with KU in the first few days takes a really long time with a long wait, the drinking culture here, the sheer number of shops and restaurants, the streets are jammed with shops and there are so many 'marts' with food and some toiletries and a ton of restaurants, coffee shops, pastry shops, etc. It's nice to have so much variety in everything.

So this weekend I hope to go to a market, and also to Myeondong which is a really fun district filled with bars and parties and young people. I'll update after I go there.