An art show, a Palace, Ginseng chicken and the shopping capital of Seoul

One of my co-workers invited me to brunch where one of his friends was displaying some of his art work. I enjoy brunch and Koreans are not much of breakfast eaters so whenever I am invited to a brunch place I most likely will go. Toriann and I met up with our co-worker Gordon for brunch, which ended up during into lunch and a pitcher of sangria. After our lunch and sangria, we headed to Deoksugung Palace. Deoksugung Palace is the smallest of the palaces in Seoul. The palace has a mix of new and old buildings and is quite the change from other palaces in Seoul. The other palaces I have been to, I end up forgetting I am in Seoul because the grounds seem so secluded from the rest of the city. However, at this palace, you see both the traditional palace buildings, and the urban skyline. We spent a little over an hour exploring the small palace grounds and taking in some of the local folk music that was being showcased. After our visit to the palace, Gordon took us to a ginseng soup house. The soup is called Samgyetang, and translated means, ginseng and chicken soup. It is supposed to be eaten on the hottest day of the year, in August and bring you good luck. The chicken is stuffed with rice and boiled in ginseng broth. It was an experience eating this chicken with chopsticks and a spoon. I have become quite an experienced and talented chopstick user, but this was a little over my expertise. The chicken was basically just cut in half and stuffed with rice, meaning it still had all its bones. I felt like I had to work so hard just to eat the chicken! Still, it was another new Korean dish I tried and it was an experience.

Finally we walked to Myeong-dong, the shopping capital of Seoul. I had heard about this area, but had yet to visit it. It was busy, crowded, bright, and loud. It had many western stores, along with all the Korean chain stores. It was streets and streets of stores filled with people. I am not a fan of overly large and crowded places and found myself feeling slightly overwhelmed. Next time I go it will be after work sometime, and not on a Sunday evening. We ended our day by going into a little food mart and found these tiny beers called mini beers. We found this funny and thought we too should indulge in a mini beer. It was a great day spent with friends exploring more of the city.