Seoul Zoo

Chuseok Day 2:
So a few weeks ago when Jenny, Shauna and I were contemplating what we should do on our four days off for Chuseok, I mentioned that I really wanted to go to the Zoo. I love Zoo's, and animals and I had hoped to get to London Zoo this past summer but the price ticket of around 17 pounds put me off, I did manage to get to Chessington world of Adventures which has a Zoo which was brilliant but I still had the urge to go to a proper Zoo. According to my Rough Guide to Korea, guide book Seoul Zoo is one of the Top 10 largest Zoo's in the world and that it costs less than 10,000 won to get in (that's around five quid). Seoul Zoo is situated in southern Seoul, so we also got to take our first trip over the Han river! (we saw it from the top of N Seoul tower but that's as close as we had been!) Its withing Seoul Grand Park which also houses an apparently amazing Contemporary Art museum and one of Seoul's three amusement parks, Seoul Land. Saying that Seoul Grand Park is Grand is somewhat of an understatement it is HUGE, and we just went to the Zoo part! It cost 8000 won to get in - 4 pounds and that included a train/bus from the ticket booth to the entrance of the park and then a skylift back when we finished! I say we, As well as Jenny, Shauna and I, we also went with David (American teaching in a public school in Munsan) Jesse (Canadian teaching in a different public school in Munsan) and Kyle (Canadian, teaching in a school in Eastern Seoul, friends with Jesse) It was a good bunch of people. We were slightly worried, initially about how the Zoo would be, rumours of cruelty always surround Zoo's, especially in Asia, however just to put youyr straight right away - Seoul Zoo is as close to Animal Heaven as an a Zoo could be. The animals have masses of space to wander/swing/crawl around in and they all looked pretty happy, (unlike the sad pony). They have a huge collection of animals (No Panda's) everything from flamingos and giraffes to bears and camels and these amazing little fluff balls in the Nocturnal section (to dark to take pictures) that I wanted to steal - Slow Loris's and Kinkaju's - so adorable. Now, the one crazy thing about the Zoo wasn't in fact the Zoo itself but the Koreans in the Zoo. They feed the animals. They stick their arms and fingers into cages with whatever food they have to hand and they feed the animals, and nobody bats an eyelid. I stood next to a guy in the monkey enclosure who was feeding the monkeys what looked like purple Skittle sweets. A whole family was ripping up grass and plants in order to feed the camels. It was just crazy. We were there for 5 hours and according the map we had we reckon we probably walked atleast 5kilometres. It was amazing. The animals were cute the only not so great bit was taking the skychair back to the main entrance - over a river. Yes I screamed.

Itaewon

Itaewon is the 'Foreigner's area' of Seoul and it wasn't a place I was particularly up for visiting, I wanted to be surrounded by Korean's when in Korea not surrounded by drunk American soldiers etc. However I had planned to go there at some point as they have a bookshop which sells English books (it was closed), they also have loads of different food places. We went to Itaewon on both Friday evening (post Zoo) and Saturday eveing for dinner. The first night heading to an All American Burger joint have a mass of comedy moments and some amazing yet pretty pricey burgers. The second night we went to this beautiful little restaurant called The Flying Pan, it sells the most amazing sandwiches, and I think I ate the most amazing Chicken and Avocado sandwich I have EVER eaten there - or maybe I just think that because I am in Korea where sandwiches are rare and buying Avocado's would require re-mortgaging your house.

Insa-dong

After the Korean museum of Buddhist art, we headed into Insa-dong. Insa-dong was a short walk from the Palace and the museum and is key area for Art in Seoul - not that we actually made it to any Galleries! We had been quite cultured out by this point, and due to the amount of Art and Artists Insa-dong is a fairly bohemian area and they had some amazing shops and I managed to pick up som great pieces of jewelrey, before we did the stereotypical thing of going to McDonald's for some food! I went for the McChicken Sandwich meal which was ten times better than the ones you get in the UK! (They flavour the chicken so it has somewhat of a kick to it!) As well as jewelrey i managed to pick up some more incense (its very Korean to constantly burn incense in ones home - well it's very Korean with westerners anyhow!)

Korean Museum of Buddhist Art

So after hitting up Changdeokgung Palace we saw a sign informing us that a mere 250 yards up a side street was 'The Korean museum of Buddhist Art', not wanting to miss an opportunity and with no immediate, definite plans we went in search of the Museum. The first thing we learnt is that the distances on Korean signposts are not very accurate, about 15 minutes of walking down the street nearing the point of giving up and guessing the signpost was old we finally found the museum. As expected it was a small building, but modern and it looked impressive. We paid 10,000 won (about a fiver) and purchased a month museum pass that allowed us into five other museums, we decided it was worth it as single entrance was 5000 won. The museum was in two parts, two floors of a permanent exhibition and then 2 floors of a temporary exhibition, the lovely lady at the door gave us a great little English guide, a glass of water and a free postcard as we left. It was a great little museum, that gave a good initial insight into Buddhist art, something I am not particularly familiar with. Some of it fit with the imagined sterotype of what it would be like and some was way of the mark, I managed to get a few photos of some rather funky pieces so take a look yourself.......