Early days in Korea - 2nd & 3rd of October

I think I missed this out of yesterdays blog, it was David's last day at work so we went for a wander locally to where david lives he lives in Mansu Sam-ji-gu it is sort of between Incheon and Soeul.

There was a lovely stream with lots of lovely wild flowers to see and smell as we walked up the valley, then up to the park, which was apparantly the 2nd biggest around Soeul.

There was a beautiful lake with loads of fish in it, and as it was such a lovely day and we were tired, we had a bit of a sleep on the grass, taking in the late summer sun, which was just not doene by the locals - I guess we got a few funny looks. On the way back we saw a wedding - on the banks ofthe river - just amazing.

We tried out our first Korean food a sort of hot dog and a similar crab stick on a stick with a sort of dough on - all in all fairly ordinary I have to say.

Later on after David finished school we went to a local restaurant where we had sort stew which we added thin slices of beef to it and cooked it on the stove ourselves in the middle of the low down short table, there was a range of side dishes, including hot yellow pickled radish and then they fried some rice in the same dish that had the stew in it - all in all pretty good - plus an occasional beer.

Yesterday we met Nami, - Davids friend, we all went on the train to see the Gyeongbokgung castle, this was rebuilt in 1998 and I have to say it was a good job, although it was a bit like Didney world - as I would expect as I have never visited Disney World. At the time they were preparing for a local TV programme in front of the castle, there were queues of people all over.

We also went to the Folk museum, which was in the grounds - oh by the way I nearly forgot - it was free entry - 'cos it was a national " family" holiday.

In the evening we went for another Korean meal, this time we had a sort of BBQ on the table in front of us, with a chimney to take away the fumes - quite something, we had beef and a range of salads, and sude dishes.