Penultimate (or two weekends ago)

Not last weekend, but the one before that, I went to Seoul with my boyfriend. His aunts live there and it was time we visit them again. They're extremely nice and kind, very giving. We didn't get there til around 9pm. And they took us out shopping - because I wanted to get a bathing suit. I also bought a dress and a dressy top and a kind of skort. It was a little expensive, but well worth it I think. (the bathing suit was actually a really good price)

I haven't actually taken pictures of the clothes yet. Ha. But I took pictures of what we did the rest of the weekend. J took me to the Seoul Museum of Art to see the Gauguin exhibit, and then we went to the castle near there. I digress.

This is us, finishing our iced coffees before going inside. 

This is Minho from SHINEE who joined us. (j bought me these socks the night before during our shopping excursion)

I can't really show you much since pictures were prohibited. 

The exhibit is called Gauguin and After. They put modern works amidst works of Gauguin to show what he's inspired. The concept was rather interesting. You would view a bunch of Gauguin, and read about his life during that period, and then move to a room with some modern art. To be honest, I didn't understand most of the modern art pieces (especially how Gauguin had any influence). The strangest one was a video of a performance. A guy had sassy attitude women of color and drag queens tsk, head waggle, chomp gum &etc into mics like a choir and he orchestrated it with Wii batons. I didn't really understand it. 

Regardless, I love looking at art. 

A tree outside the museum. It is so awesome and gnarly.

 An art installation outside the museum. It's cool and all but... I can't help but think of Slenderman. The figures (there's more than this one) stand here and there in the little wood.

This is at the entrance to the museum. 

We wandered from there, with no real plans. 

And got to see the guard wander through with.. the flag I think it was. I am not sure why. They were in period dress and carrying glaives. 

Flags and glaives. 

From there we ended up here. 

The ticket reads Deoksugung Palace (덕수궁). These guys were awesome actors. 

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I forgot. Before going in Deoksugung, J and I gawked a the new city hall building. 

The building with the flag is city hall, the old building. The building directly behind it that looks space-age and glass and is an interesting shape - that is the new city hall. 

The day was almost as hot as Satan's armpit, so the

first thing we did was get iced tea.

J probably doesn't like this picture, but I like it. He makes this face when it comes to food.

After watching the ducks in the lily pond that you can't really see behind J, we went walking. 

Here's another shot of my legs. Either I really like my socks or I like my legs. You can decide and have a laugh.

One of my favorite things to do is look at the ceilings in palaces and old buildings. They really loved to decorate everything so ornately. (temples too!)

So I guess when Asia opened up to Western trade, there was a push to build the European styled palace you see back there. The point was to display Korea's modernity, and avoid colonization. 

The western style building even has a big green lawn with a fountain and reminds me of something out of Jane Austen. 

The back of the throne room building. 

The front. Yup. J would walk on the king's path. For some reason I don't have a picture of the inside, but it has very high ceilings with a big hanging ceiling thing around the throne. I wish I knew what that thing was called.

Formosa tree in bloom. 

Oldest, old and new all in one. (well okay i guess you can't really see the older city hall, but you can imagine it right there)

I leave you with a picture of J in front of a bell and a.... I forget the Korean name.. it's a machine of war - rocket launched arrows. One spark and you can shoot 100 arrows at once!