Moar!

So far, everything is still great – I'm getting tired of staying in the hotel, but fortunately we get move to the residence hall on Friday... I'm so looking forward to that!

The Gyeongbokgung Palace was brilliant, I loved it. Clicky on the picture to view the whole album. By sheer chance we ran into two Chinese guys from the university, one of whom was in my Orientation group. We toured the palace twice – first by ourselves, and then we joined an official tour. There's a National Folk Museum on the grounds as well, with free entrance (and AC!) so we checked that one out as well. It was a really hot day, so after a few hours Claire and I were completely exhausted and headed back to Miasamgeori, where the hotel is.

Valerie met a couple of girls at the hotel who are from Singapore and just having a holiday here. They took us out to eat last night, and again the food is just too good! We had chuk (죽) which is kind of like rice porridge/soup with veggies and meat in it (I had mine with cheese and chicken and veggies). Apparently, this is what Koreans eat when they're ill... And it's supposed to be really nice in the winter. Although I love spicy food, it was a nice change from what we've had most days here. Afterwards we tried some toboki, rice cake in a hot sauce... love it. This one had fish cake in it, though, so I only had a few bites. Luckily, I didn't get sick.

So tonight we're supposed to head to Dongdaemun for some shopping. My suitcase is broken (it ripped below the zipper, so I'm going to have to buy a new one before I leave Korea) so I need at least one new backpack and maybe a belt or something so I can close it for the upcoming move. It feels like I'm spending tons and tons of money, but really it's pretty cheap here – just eating out several times a day eventually adds up. I hope I'll be able to manage when I need to start paying rent!