Day out with YuSun

Today I had no classes, and so my friend YuSun and I decided to meet somewhere to have some fun! We haven’t seen each other for a really long time since we had our British Lit class together….she’s since graduated from Purdue and moved back to Korea, and so while I was here I really wanted to see her!

So at one pm I met…

YuSun! It’s a very candid photo so she probably won’t like it~ But she’s even prettier than the last time I saw her! It was really great to see her and it was so awesome to catch up. She wanted to take me to a specific place, but not before lunch! We got some Japanese food and it was so good…she really did pay for everything today, every meal! After eating, she took me up a really steep hill to where there was some art that was done on the buildings of the street. The higher we got, the more of the city below we could see.

It was really cool! There were paintings, graffiti types, wire designs, and even carvings.

I don’t know what the robot means, but I thought it was so cute…and it says “hi” in Korea, it was really adorable…then there was a really cool staircase! I blacked out my face because it was pouring rain and I was a mess, haha~

But it was really, really cool! We walked around for a long time, but it was hard to take pictures while holding an umbrella in the pouring rain…I was scared of getting my camera wet. But it was a really beautiful area. We walked for a while and it was nice to just look around and see the city. YuSun then decided to take me to a palace! (Again, she paid for the ticket…)

It was the ChangGyeongGung palace, and it was so huge! It covered a lot of ground, and the archways and buildings were really big, too. For a while we looked around at the buildings and she explained some things for me about the history or what certain things meant, like about what each small stone meant in the main courtyard area.

After seeing that we walked around the main building to another area

And there was a neat place to sit where we relaxed out of the rain. It was nice and calm there, so we sat for a long time and talked. After a while, we started getting sore from sitting for so long, so we walked around the upper garden area.

From this place you can see just how in-the-city the palace is.

Korea definitely blends the old with their new. The grounds for the palace were very calm and green, and just outside the front gate it was modern high rises and daily life. We kept walking and it really was so green…the forests around the path looked like they went on forever!

I saw quite a few people walking while we were here and it was a very comfortable place to be. We even saw a small lake that was inside the palace grounds, and it would have been nice to sit and enjoy the view if it hadn’t been pouring down rain~

After walking for a bit more and getting a drink from a vending machine, we left the palace.

Back to the everyday life for us! Actually, while leaving this place was right across the street…my mom and dad will recognize the name! Seoul National University Hospital~ It was actually a really beautiful building, but I had to take a picture to show them that I had been nearby it and seen it!

We walked around for a while more and she wanted to take me to see SeJong’s statue, but it started pouring so we just ran by it and inside to a HUGE bookstore. It was gigantic, I was amazed! We looked around for a bit before sitting down and getting a drink…and talking for a long time again. Before we knew it, it was 7:30 and we were hungry for something to eat. We ventured outside and she took me to a bibimbap restaurant. I love Bibimbap, it’s one of my favorite Korean foods, so I was really excited to try it in Korea. Inside it was nice and dry, but outside the rain kept coming down.

We both decided on the kimchi with pork bibimbap, and it was so good.

I always forget just how big bibimbap is to me, so I couldn’t even finish mine! TT___TT After eating and talking for even LONGER, we decided it was best to split ways and go home, because I have class tomorrow early in the morning. Ahh, it was really sad to go separate ways because it was so wonderful to see her…but we’ll see each other again, and hopefully when it’s sunny outside!

It's still raining outside, but it's very calming. I've so tired from having so much fun today and walking all over, I know I'll sleep well tonight. Thank you, YuSun, for such an awesome and fun day!