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The days after the night we spent at shimjilbang, Wednesday, july 18th, we were supposed to visit Panmunjeon and the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea. At 9 pm we were at the meeting point in the Lotte Hotel in Seoul, only to find out that Kyosunim (our teacher) had not properly booked our seats in the tour. It was thus postponed to Friday. After some more arguing we decided to go first to Namdemun; traditional market place in Seoul where you can find pretty much everything at a low price. We then took the subway -Seoul subway, just imagine ! - on our own because Kyosunim had to stay with her sister, to Gyonguk palace in Seoul where we met up with Nohun.
Afterwards Nohun took us to Insa Dong; the place where most
We spent the next morning cooking in the temple's kitchen for the reception at Korea's Foundation we were to give in the evening. Korea's Foundation is the society that pays the wages of our teacher and supports many of our projects. Because I spent the day helping organize the reception I changed in my dress at the very last second… and got stuck in the closet I had elected as my hiding place (no time to go hide in the toilets downstairs. I was lucky Marcia heard me and rescued me quickly or it would have been very very embarassing :/
After the reception we rode coach to Oryu Dong, where Kyosunim's family had booked rooms for us. The main asset of our hotel was that is was cheap and… OMG it was actually a love hotel ! First thing we noticed was the mirror above the bed :D We spent the next three nights there.
On Friday we finally visited Panmunjeon and the DMZ, yeah you read right, somehow they managed to turn the South/Noth border into an attraction for foreign tourists. In the afternoon we were back to Seoul, we took the subway again to meet with a group of Bon San artists - Bon Sang is traditional Korean masked dance - they taught us the basics of their dance and music and allowed us to try on their costumes and masks. I did not like it at first, just like anything sport related like dance, but in the end it was pretty fun ^.^
Then they invited us to the restaurant with other friends of them. We drank and sang, a common evening in Korean. After that Kyosunim invited us, and a film director who was there, to drink beer in a pub. At 1am the taxi drove us back to Oryu Dong… where Kyosunim's sister came to drive us to the club where her boyfriend was a DJ. We were supposed to stay there for only a short time… We stumbled into our hotel room between 4 and 5am, efficiently disturbing those of the group who had gone to bed right after the restaurant.
On Saturday we went to Yonsan, the electronic market, where you can find anything electronic related at a lower price than in France, I bought speakers for my PC.. and managed to stuff it in my suitcase !! \o/. In the afternoon we went back to Namdemun for last minute souvenir shopping. Some of the boys went to a book shop while Kiang Sin and Nohun led the rest of us to another district for Marie Laure and Christelle to buy hanbok (traditional Korean dress) in a shop Nohun knew. It took a long time and we were tired so with Kiang Sin we went to a have a drink. Their coffee shake was heavenly.
In the evening we had all planned to pack our things in peace but noooooo there had to be another dinner out with the formor boss (if I got it right) of Korean Airline, well all I know is that there was soju and meat, and soju and even more soju, perfect way to end this wonderful trip to
I packed my things in the middle of the night, which probably explains why I forgot many of them, among which my diary, of course I WOULD forget it :/
The flight back was uneventful, I had a long conversation with my neighbour. He sounded agreeably surprised to learn that so many French people are interested in Korean movies, dramas and culture as a whole.
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