Sunday, January 4, 2009

Well today was by far the best day, I had so much fun today and got to experience many different things. We started the day by going to the Blue House, equivilent to our White House. This was an interesting place with almost one hundred police and secret service people around the building. There were designated picture spots and you could only take pictures in these spots. I never obey they "no picture" signs and started clicking away and they came over to me. They watched as I deleted each and every picture I had taken. From then on I had to secretly snap away lol. Next we went to Insadong, the open air street market. Here my freind took me into a caligraphy shop where we sat down and talked to the lady. He then pointed me over to the shelf and told me to pick my favorite of what looked like paper weights. I chose one and he picked it up and took it to the lady at the desk. She then had me write my name in english and she wrote it in Korean. She told me that she was going to make a postage stamp with my name in Korean on it. I was stoked. It took her about thirty minuates to hand carve and shave my name into the bottom. When she was done it was a perfect, it came with ink and everything. Its an authentic hand made Korean mailing stamp. It is so special to me and I love it. After this we walked the streets taking pictures of people as they passed and did life. I made sure to include the entire body, not just the knees up (dad...). From there we went to the Changgyeongeog Palace. This is an authentic palace that dates back to the twelth century. Outside of the palace gates older men meet and play the equivilent to chess in America. This was a great opportunity for pictures. Although I got many rude looks and some unneccisary comments I obtained the pictures neccisary. After this we went to Jongmyo, the Royal Shrine, this was interesting at first but then kind of boring. After we went to Damdaemun market, the "Red Light District" of Seoul. There were many Americans and very crowded streets. Usually my day would end here and I would come back to my room and blog all this for you but not today, today was different. The parents werent going to be home so we had to eat for ourselves. We went to a Korean steak house which was different but good. After my freind asked me if I wouldnt mind meeting some of his freinds, I said of course why not. We met at a ping pong house, a room full of tables where you pay for time and play. He asked me if I was good and I said I was medium. I met his two freinds and we began playing. Well Asians are good at ping pong, but thanks to practice in the states I was better. I played all the people in the room and beat them all, it was very fun and welcoming. Afterwards his freinds and I went to a coffee shop and had coffee together. One of his freinds is the editor of the pictures for the Seoul newspaper, he is also a photographer. He had his Cannon Digital there and his lenses so we talked ish about cameras for quite awhile, comparing and talking. It was fun to connect with someone like me of the opposite culture. When we were leaving his freind asked if we were doing anything on Monday. Tommorrow was our free day so we had nothing planned. He wanted to go with me in Seoul and take pictures with me. He knows some good spots and wants my advice. He is an upcoming photographer and thinks I am so pro so he wants to pick my brain for a day. I was stoked with this notion and told him yes yes yes. We are meeting and going together to take pictures. This is very exciting and nice to have a change from the normal day. Today was a great day and I am fainlly starting to connect with the culture. I enjoyed today greatly and have been given an inspiration for the days to come. I took 994 pictures today and killed both the batteries. For those of you who have Facebook I have been posting pictures daily. Thank you for you support and I will talk to you tommorrow.

Andrew
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