After about four hours sleep, I took a shower and dragged my jet-laggy self out to Starbucks for a triple latte. I stopped at Tapgol Park to see National Treasure No. 2, but the park wasn’t open yet, so I walked through Insadong, trying to avoid the umbrellas. The rain was no more than a light drizzle, but nearly everyone had an umbrella, and walking down the street means that you’re constantly at risk of being skewered by an umbrella rib.

A latte isn’t much of a breakfast, so I got some sort of Egg McMuffin analog from a street vendor. That wasn’t much of a breakfast either, but at least it was sort of filling.

I stopped by a very flower-intensive Buddhist temple with amplified chanting emanating from it. It had large golden Buddhas and left-pointing swastikas and topiaries shaped like elephants. There was a vending machine that sold American and Japanese drinks.

After that I’m not sure where I went. I wandered through side streets and alleys, then went up a hill that got progressively steeper. There were more traditional hanok buildings as well as fancier modern buildings, with a lot of art galleries and European-themed restaurants. (French bakeries seem popular.) The streets were lined with pine trees. The whole area looked like a combination of Carmel, Montmarte, and San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Down the hill on the other side, I went through more alleys and encountered a group of teenagers who said, in decent English, that they were part of some mission and one of their tasks was to take a picture with a foreigner, and could they take a picture with me? So somehow they knew I was a foreigner. One of them took a picture of us on his iPhone and they went on their way, shouting “I love Korea” as they went.

I continued down the hill, stopping at one point to get out of the way of two fire trucks that arrived to put out a fire in a shop. It was already out at that point, but smoke was still billowing out of the windows. Patrons at the restaurant next door were fanning away the smoke, but otherwise continuing with their meals.

Then I walked back to the main street, bought some Pocari Sweat from a street vendor, walked back to Bong House, and took a nap.

Total walking distance was a little over nine miles.

Joseon architecture from 1412. Sort of the Longaberger Basket building of its day.

Gyeongbok Palace is the largest palace of the Joseun Dynasty. I went there, along with 17,000,000,000 other people.

The buildings were impressive,but it’s hard to get a feel for the period when you’re surrounded by all those people, and when the palace grounds are surrounded by the buildings and construction cranes of modern Korea.

Proprietor: Mr. Bong. Bong House is a sort of combination guest house and hostel. Most of the rooms sleep multiple people, but mine is a private room, because I do have standards. No, really, I do. They’re just not very high.

But it seems well-run and pleasant enough, and if not all that quiet, it’s certainly cheap. And guests are entitled to one free beer each day at the Bong Bar downstairs.