32cm high ice creams

In the Myeongdong area there are numerous ice cream sellers competing to sell the highest ice cream cone. This one advertised 32cm high ice creams. Including the cone, this was easily 32cm. We certainly got plenty for our 1000 won (50p).

Shopping in Dongdaemun (동대문시장)

This is the area where i'm living. There's plenty of huge malls here, and inside they are like markets. Lots of clothes, bags and shoes and low prices. Open until 5am!!!

Watermelon!

I really like watermelon, and now I can eat it every day. Hopefully the healthy food makes up for the air pollution...

Nagweon Instrument area

Think of the music store in Victoria centre, and then imagine every shop in victoria centre is a music store, that's what this area is like. Literally hundreds of pianos, thousands of guitars and every other instrument or musical gadget you can think of. Shopping here is a lot of fun.

Night view from the apartment

Cheonggyecheon river

After Insadong we walked back to the apartment, going along the Cheonggyecheon river. This was built 3 years ago to provide a more relaxing area for people to walk away from the busy roads above. There used to be a river here in Seoul a long time ago but it was lost with the expansion of the city. Finally, a pic of Ulchiro co-op residence, where i'm staying on the top floor (15th).

Insadong shops and food

We then walked over to Insadong, which is a shopping area very busy with tourists and natives. Although the side streets don't get busy and there are plenty of Korean restaurants to eat at. Tina found a good one which you can see below:

Gyeoungbok palace 2

More pics

Day 4 - Gyeongbok Palace

Today we got the bus to a nearby part of town to visit Gyeongbok Palace. It was Built in 1394 and destroyed and renovated a few times over the years. There is also the Korea national folk museum there which we went around, which notably had some interesting antique books showing the development of Korean script from Chinese.