A Journey for my Seoul: Midterms and Exploring

We had four 50 minute sessions of testing in the morning. First was reading, then questions (which to me, seemed pretty similar to the reading portion--except it was more about grammar and correct usage), then listening, and finally writing. I think I did the best on listening and reading; we'll get our tests back on Monday and go over it.

After class, I had planned to go see an outdoor taekwondo performance. I got to the subway and I saw Mark, one of the other adoptees. He and I started chatting while waiting for the subway and then got into our background and adoption history on the subway. I was going to be transferring lines to go to the performance thing, but Mark and I decided we would continue our discussion so we went to Cheonggyecheon and walked and talked. We parted ways and I went to where the taekwondo performance was being held-except there was nothing going on. I was a little bummed, but the location was at a park and also holds Korean's National Treasure #2 (a marble pagoda) so I walked around the small park and enjoyed the trees and other sculptures there.

Insadong is a neighborhood in Seoul that sells traditional and cultural items (along with more knickknacky souvenirs as well). Insadong is very close to the park I was at, so I went there and browsed a bit. I had researched a restaurant selling juk (a Korean rice porridge--it is kind of like soupy risotto) which was near Myeongdong--just across Cheonggyechon, so I walked south towards Myeongdong and found the restaurant easily. It was good, but not that great. I think the thing about juk is that it's known to be healthy, so it was a little bland tasting. I then headed on to Myeongdong, a popular shopping area. I just window shopped and didn't really see anything that I had to have. I headed back here and researched and prepared my plans for tomorrow.