Last Thursday was Samil, Korean Independence Day.  Ally, her friend Judy and I went to Seoul to bop around Insdaong.  We had a very fun yet tiring day in Insadong.  Here are some pics.

There was some kind of presentation outside a park near Insadong.  These people were doing a Tai-Chi-like routine to traditional Korean music, it was really cool.

We then stumbled onto a concert by some cute little Korean kids dressed in traditional Hanbok outfits.

We were starving so we headed to downtown Insadong for some lunch.

This was our huge lunch, our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs.  We had yakimandu, ddeokbokki, chicken teriyaki udon, and chicken donkkas.  All of this food cost about $6 per person.  Ally thinks it’s hilarious that I think food here is so cheap.

Some more pics of our day of shopping in Insadong.  I came home with some earrings and some traditional Korean papers.   After Insadong, we came back to Songtan and met Joe at a restaurant on base, the Flying M Ranch, for some dinner.

Judy and Ally at dinner.

I tried to explain to Ally and Judy that it’s very common for American steakhouses to have animal heads hanging on the wall.  She told us that Koreans don’t really hunt and that it was weird to eat around all the animals.  In Korea, restaurants typically advertise their meals with pictures of raw slabs of meat rather than large hunting-trophy-style decor.