西洋오랑캐

Yesterday was a nonstop party during which the wife and I rocked it to the break of dawn! The day began with a trip to 창덕궁. Since spring has sprung we decided to head off with a tripod and take some pictures while standing infront of the natural beauty…or man made beauty that is 비원 (the Secret Garden).

So there was a bus ride and we disembarked in 종로. Before we headed to the palace we grabbed ourselves some lunch. The day’s menu was 오무라이스 that was simply outstanding. I had a unit of 오무라이스 with a carbona sauce, and the wife chowed down on one topped with fried bananas / sweet potatoes. Both were top notch, and apparently we were extremely hungry since we were in the restaurant for about 15 minutes (from ordering to paying the bill).

From there it was off to 창덕궁 in order to snap some pictures. Somehow between the last time I visited this venue, and this time, the powers that be became a lot more strict. After buying our tickets we had to wait 30 minutes or so for the next guided tour to begin before we were allowed in. After that, armed guards (armed in the sense that they all had two arms) were stationed around the area to prevent people from wandering off and examining the grounds at their own pace.

So the first 20 minutes or so of the tour was spent trying to evade capture so we could go at our own pace, see things we wanted to see, take pictures, skip the stuff we had no interest in, and so on. I’m not saying that the guided tour is pointless, far from it. It was quite informative the first time I listened to it, and I’m pretty sure that in the past six or seven months, the history of the palace hasn’t changed much.

Finally sneaking off, we made our way to 비원 (aka the Secret Garden) which in all honesty was the reason we made the pilgrimage to that venue. “Let’s go to 비원 with a tripod and take some pictures with decent scenic backdrops.” Which is just what we did. The photo evidence is avalible here for those who care to see it.

After throughly wandering about the venue and seeing all that we cared to see, 진희 and I headed over to the bookstore known as English Plus so that she could pick up some sort of book about testing English vocabulary. We we’re then planning to take a bus home, but some farmers from out in the provinces and college students had another idea. Their idea was to get pissed off about the government’s plan to import some food stuffs at much cheaper prices (therefore making it harder for farmers to make money), come to Seoul, march in the street, set fire to stuff, and have the police block off the streets to allow this behavior (instead of busting farmers in the skull). I snapped a couple of low quality photos mostly because I thought their protest wagon was rediculous (see photo to the right).

The flow of traffic was seriously messed up, so instead of taking the bus home, which on a normal day takes about 40 minutes, we had to take the subway (which takes roughly an hour and a half). So I was a tad pissed off, and took this annoyance out the random middle aged women who attempted to push their way onto the subway as the wife and I were attempting to get off to make the first of the transfers we had to make. I seriously close-lined one of them and she got all indignant, but I felt no remorse what so ever.

Jerkass farmers aside the afternoon was outstanding, but the day was far from over. Once back in our home area, we decided to go check out a film at the movie theater. 진희 wanted to see 뻔뻔한 딕 & 제인 (Fun With Dick & Jane), so we went to go check out some tickets. There was a showing at 9:00, but we would have had to sit in seats away from each other, and where’s the fun in that?

There was another showing at midnight, so we purchased tickets which (due to being for a showing at midnight) were 50% off. We headed home to kill some time before the showing, and to pick up some snacks to bring to the theater with us. In a clear sign that I have been in Korea far, far too long, the snack I personally selected to bring with me was not chips, or popcorn, or a candy bar of anysort, but dried squid. That’s right, I brought the very same snack I once loathed to encounter in the movie theater.

Anyhow, 11:15 rolled around and we headed back to the theater, and took in the film. Our seats were outstanding. We had “couple seats” (which is basically one big seat for two people) up on a balcony away from everyone else in the theater. So we sat there, ate our squid, drank our beers and enjoyed the movie. Personally, I thought the film was not that bad. Jim Carrey often annoys the hell out of me with his manic behavior in other films, but here he was more subdued and therefore a lot funnier. All in all the film was pretty decent: a comedy that required very little work to enjoy, which is the right kind of movie to watch at midnight I suppose.

The film ended and 진희 and I walked back home. Sometime between 11:15 and 1:30 or so, a cold wind had picked up and the air was crisp and a tad chilly. We returned home, had a cup of tea and a chat, and then headed off to bed. When all was said and done, it was a fantastic day.