Week 1, Day 6

It was a Saturday, a free day, but we had a team activity. Our SSC advisors took us to Seoul for a city tour. They did an awesome job! The SSC team members truly appreciated their tireless energy to entertain us.

After 2 hours of driving, we finally arrived in Seoul. The first stop was to get some Starbucks then to the Gwanghwamun Square. A couple of the SCC team members tried out a king costume. A big stature in the second picture is SaeJong King who invented the Korean alphabet along with many other scientific discoveries.

The next stop Changdeokgung Palace - Secret Garden Tour. A tour guide (one with an umbrella) did a great job of explaining about various architectures and designs within the palace. It was truly remarkable that a large palace like this was right in the middle of a busy city like Seoul.

We also visited Insa Dong which is a popular shopping district.

Below is where we tried some of Korea's traditional desert. A sweet Cinnamon drink, sweet rice drink, and green tea ice shaving with red bean.

Next to 5pm Nanta Performance at Myung-dong which is probably the fanciest shopping district. What a great show.

For dinner, we tried some Korea's cold noodles at a well known specialty restaurant. A funny thing happened right after we ordered. The waitress wouldn't leave the table and was just standing there. I think someone asked if we're all set, then the waitress said that we should pay first. Interesting...

We also tried a sweet snack ($1 each). This certainly brought back some memories for me as the taste was exactly the way I remembered from more than 36 years ago.

It was getting late, so we all decided to skip the tour of the tallest mountain in Seoul and head back to CheongJu.

It was about 10:30pm when we arrived in CheongJu. It was a long day, but certainly was well worth it. Again much recognition goes to the SCC advisor & the driver for their hard work today.