A Saturday with a palace, birds and fish

Matt keeps calling this blog 'Bungblogalypse', which makes me laugh, so I thought I'd share. Just wanted to post some photos of a wonderful Saturday. Simon and I visited Gyeongbokgung, which is a palace nearish my school. I go past it every day on the bus and it's the biggest one in Seoul.

We turned up just in time for the changing of the guard:

and then joined a tour with a sweet and funny Korean lady. Here are some photos from around the palace:

This is a sundial they invented that also split the year in 24 seasons for agriculture:

Kingy things:

A hexagonal chimney behind the queen's quarters:

Simon got dressed up as some top official:

I preferred the cardboard cut-out route as it was boiling hot and I didn't want to put any more clothes on:

After the palace, we headed for Insa-Dong to find the bird tearoom I'd marked in my rough guide months ago. After a while, we found it and it was wonderful. Simon had the strongest, spiciest ginger tea we'd ever teasted and I had cold pear tea (with a spoon).

Then, we headed to Hongdae, the university area, to visit a Doctor Fish restaurant. You wash your feet and then you sit with them in water and Doctor Fish eat the dead skin from your feet. You also get a beer and a piece of cake. Not bad for a fiver. I'd been wanting to go ever since Rosy took Simon last year but when I was actually there and about to put my feet in, I couldn't do it! They were bigger than I expected and Simon had his feet in and was making all these weird faces. Anyway, eventually I did it and it was not how I expected! I thought it would be gentle nibbling that you didn't really notice. But no. Simon started me off with the Chinese Doctor Fish, which (he later admitted) are the more hardcore ones. I put my feet in and something just attacked me. It felt like. I mean, these things really go at you! It took me about ten or fifteen minutes to get used to it but I did in the end. It felt like having quite bad pins and needles. Or lots of water jets on your feet. It would have been ok but they kept moving, which reminded you that it was something alive that was feasting on your dead skin. But once I got used to it, it was brilliant.

My feet. I mean, Simon's:

Mine!

That's more of a grimace than a smile:

We stayed there for a while (and my legs and feet were so smooth afterwards!) and met a Canadian and two Americans, so we went for dinner with them and then home afterwards. I'd more or less lost my voice the night before and sounded like Marge Simpson all day so I didn't want to stay out late. My voice completely disappeared on Sunday but I got it back a bit on Monday in time to be made fun of by my kids. I gave them the extra hard spelling words if they laughed at me. It was more or less completely back yesterday and it's only a bit croaky today.

Work is going well. I give regular spelling tests and lots of homework. It's fun being in charge! I start learning Korean next month and I handed in my application with immigration this morning to get my Alien Registration Card, so soon I can get a phone and things like that finally.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too,

Love Hannah Bunged-Up (I've had this stupid cold for nearly two weeks so far) x