Touring In Style

On Sunday, I was in Seoul with Victoria (no surprise) and we decided to take the Seoul City Tour Bus. I was able to use my tour book and figure out the subway enough to get us to the beginning of the tour route. Now, I'm from Michigan... not a big public transportation state (thank you Big 3), so I'm not used to reading subway maps or bus schedules. So, just doing this was a tremendous coup.

The bus ride took a total of 2 hours. It stopped at lots of places. Now, you can buy a day ticket for $10 and tour the city. Get out anywhere you want, and get on when the next bus stops by, a very cool thing. The bus also had headphones with audio commentary about the places you see in English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and French. I chose English.

The main government building was covered in a shroud. Check it out... very cool.

The only stop we made was to see Deoksugung Palace. Every palace in Korea looks the same. It's kind of disappointing. More disappointing is that you can't enter any of them, and there is nothing in them to see anyway. So, you see the throne room, but it's empty. What's the point?

When we arrived, they were re-enacting a changing of the guards. Note that the Palace is conveniently located across the street from Dunkin Donuts. Those Emperors thought of everything.

Here is the gate to enter teh Palace. It's very big, very impressive. It looks like everything I saw at the Folk Village and at the War Museum and everywhere else in Korea. It's very beautiful though.

Here's some nice shots of the Palace. A statue, the throne room, just some nice exterior stuff. Like I said, very beautiful.