Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Well this will be my final blog finishing my trip here in Seoul. Today was defiantly my favorite day here in Korea. Today was a free day for me so I woke up late, piddled around, and left the house alone around eleven ish. My friend who usually accompanies me woke up sick this morning and has been in bed all day. Today I had planned on going to the American embassy just to check it out, well I got directions online from the embassy website. Well they were wrong, took me to the wrong district of Seoul. I ended up walking into a police station saying American Embassy in Korean to about twelve men. The one in the back walked up and said hello in english. Reluctantly I said "hey you speak english," he said no. He told me to follow him and he led me to the bus station near the police station. He pointed to a bus stop and told me to take the 501 bus to this station. I said ok and he walked off. Well I cant read Korean writing so I got totally lost. I rode the bus for about twenty minutes until I saw a precession of Royal Traditional Guards walking down the street. I jumped off and followed them for about three blocks taking pictures as we walked. We ended up at a Bell and a traditional built ancient Tower. This tower stood at an intersection of downtown. I stood next to the official photographer of the event with his D3X and my D200 we snapped away. All of the sudden I am pushed into a line and marched up to the top of the tower. I had been "invited" ish to participate in the ceremony of ringing the bell. During this event I personally got to ring the bell. I also took dozens of pictures of the event. As I was leaving I was thanked by countless members of the precession. It was a really neat experience. Later today I was invited to Master Bang's Tae Kwon Do school. When I arrived the demonstration team was lined up practicing. I was informed that they would do the demonstration followed by basic techniques, board breaking, and forms. I was STOKED. I pulled out my D200 and the D300 and went to work. It was awesome to see someone else do a demo besides our demonstration at Master Kim's. The entire event lasted about thirty minutes including the demo team. When they had finished they lined up for a group picture of the entire team. I took a couple pictures then was placed in the middle at the guest of honor seat. When the group pictures were done they had me pose with some of the team members... the girls. I posed with about three different girls for pictures. It was such an awesome experience and it totally made my day. I was stoked. Well thank you to all who have followed my progress through this trip and project. Today I took 1246 pictures. The totally count of pictures take this trip is a HUGE 4977 pictures. I planned on taking close to three hundred so this is awesome. Coming back home I have alot to work with. Tommorrow I will wake up late, pack my bags, and back up my pictures onto secure locations. Thank you and I will see you all when I get back home safely.

Andrew