A city day tour was organized by Yonsei Global, a student group on campus for us exchange students. For the cost of 20000won ($20Cad), it was remarkably cheap for all that we saw, ate, and did.

We headed out at 9am when we were suppose to meet at Global Lounge at 9:45am because two of my friends wanted to go today instead of tomorrow and were hoping that at least 2/80 would sleep in, be a no-show, or had forgotten about it. To our surprise, more than two spots were open and we were all able to go together,. Today was also a graduation day for Yonsei Students and compared to my home university, it was such a captivating scene on campus. There were a line up of street stalls that sold a variety of street food, beautiful bouquets all wrapped and decorated in fancy wrapping- all ready for the buyer to give to the graduating recipient, and inflatable Spongebob and Hello Kitty plastic balloons ready to be bought. If I didn't know, I thought it be a carnival going on. I guess graduating from an "Ivy League" university in Korea should be a huge deal eh?

So on board with our itinerary, we headed to Seoul's Worldcup Stadium where the 202 FIFA world cups were held. It acted as a museum as well so we were able to see pictures of soccer teams, signed soccer balls, the world cup, and even play a 'game' on virtual floor displays. I wasn't a sports fan, and I'm far from being an athlete, but being there made me want to sit in that giant outdoor stadium and experience a live soccer game with the hundreds of thousands of crazy fans sitting there.Next we headed to the CJ EM (entertainment & media) center, a private company that hosts variety shows, singing competitions, and media-related events. As a result, no photos were allowed inside of the lobby of the building for privacy reasons and there was no chance of scouting celebrities either. At one point, we all got really excited seeing a black van pulled up with all its windows covered thinking it be someone famous arriving, turns out, it was a girl who came out with her two assistants/dressers, but she wasn't famous enough for any of us to recognize her. Nearly next door was the DMC (Digital Media City) exhibition hall. This place was so trippy and filled with the most up to date and advanced information about plans to building a highly green and state of the art techy minitare 'city' in this area. They are in the process of completing the Seoul Lite tower which would be completed by 2014. When finish, it would include 8 floors of department store shopping, 37 floors of offices, 38 floors of apartments, 23 floors of family hotel rooms, 18 floors of regular hotel rooms (which would become the world's highest), 2 floors being a performance restaurant, 1 floor being the broadcasting antenna and house 2 floors of the soon to be the world's highest observatory. The area around this tower will have WiFi access where ever you are, and provide the most high tech facilities for all ages.

The Blue House photo stop was equivalent to the White House of the states. It wasn't really 'blue' to me but it was a nice area to capture photos of the monuments and natural landscape despite the icy cold wind. By this time, were were all starving and were jumping for joy for our next destination knowing that we would be making Kimchi and Jap Chae (Korea glass noodle) at Chongga Kimchi World, a Korean food company that manufactures mainly Kimchi to supermarkets around the world (check your local TnT for this brand 종가집). My new friend, Teresa and I felt like ajummas with our aprons and gloves while smearing the sauce on each layer of the vinegar soaked cabbage. It was a very easy task, yet very satisfying to do too. Fun fact of the day, there are over 200 types of kimchi you can make and the one we made was called bosam kimchi and included pine nuts and other ingredients which made it more savoury and flavorful than your regular kimchi. We got to take ours home in a plastic jar and apparently it lasts up to a month and boosts your immune system as it has more lactic acid than yogurt! To our surprize, we got to make ddeokbokgi as well, which resolved our hunger along with a can of makgeoli (rice wine)- sweeter than regular wines, but I wasn't a fan of it (but I don't drink wine usually so I can't justify fairly).

Acknowledging that we were all full, the tour guide delayed our lunch and we went to Kyengdong's oriental herb market. Here, there were over 1000 shops that sold variety of herbs, roots, teas, and snacks. Before we even entered the entrance gate filled with streets that sold these things, we already smelled it in the air. Ginseng is really popular in Korea and another fun fact is that Korea is the only country that can grow all 60 (something like that) types of it. However, antlers, dog's blood, cow's liver, and another disgusting part was four things the Koreans seek as they believe it to be highly beneficial for the human body (yuck).Following, lunch was bibimbap in a hot stone pot. I love bibimbap, I'm not a fan of rice, but I love how the rice sticks to the pot and turns crunchy at the bottom. In fact, I have been eating rice at least once a day in Korea. Rice is a staple here in every meal, and I'm actually enjoying the rice I've been eating. Kwanghwamun square was another photo stop we went to. This area consisted of a the Kwanghwamun palace, a statue of a King for the Lee dynasty I believe and some well known buildings near by. I wish we got to enter the palace, but due to time constraints and additional cost, we didn't.The last stop was the place everyone was looking forward to: Namsan Tower. This is where the infamous love lock gate was. If you don't know, basically there is an area where couples literally lock their love here and write a love note or message to their significant other on their lock. You wouldn't believe the sight of this place; I couldn't even estimate how many couples have locked a lock up here. It was so cheesy, but outrageously cute at the same time to look at locks that were rusting, to newly placed ones with written messages on them. I didn't head up to the observatory deck of the tower as I will be back with my mentor's group this Saturday, so I will be anticipating for an evening view of Seoul.

With that, our magenta tour bus headed back to Yonsei and my friends and I went to eat at a place near our dorms that had a menu consisting of everything under $5Cad. We all yearned for a bowl of hot stone pot goodness as we were all chilled to the bone from being out all day. I forgot the name of this restaurant, but we foreshadow ourselves being regulars here as the selection is abundant with the price being within our student budget.