Day 11 : Walking Tour and Markets

No run today - saved the legs for the walking tour. A sensible trade as it turned out.

Krissi and I started the morning with a couple of hours of work before heading out to join a Guru Walking Tours tour - one of those pay-what-you-want setups we’ve done in a few cities now. Ben had picked up a virus overnight and stayed home. He had plenty of YouTube and some study to catch up on so didn’t seem too fussed - but it’s never nice being sick on holiday.

The walking tour took us through Bukchon Hanok Village and Changdeokgung Palace before finishing up in Insadong - home to laneways full of cool cafes, coffee shops and bread places basically designed for photos and influencers. Our guide Sam was excellent. These tours always leave me feeling like I actually understand a place rather than just wandering around palaces wondering what I’m looking at.

For example: Korea had such a serious problem with perverts and hidden cameras that iPhones sold here are legally required to make a loud shutter click sound every time a photo is taken - an agreement between Apple and the Korean government. Interestingly though, if you take that same phone overseas, the restriction is disabled. So feel free to be a perv internationally apparently.

Like I said, I’m learning about culture.

We had a brilliant tabletop BBQ pork lunch in Insadong and then bussed back to check on Ben. He hadn’t moved but was making solid progress on finishing the internet.

Krissi and I slipped downstairs to the coffee shop next door for a few more hours of work, then left the kids to it and headed out to the Gwangjang Markets for the evening. Fresh pork and kimchi dumplings, washed down with Cass - the local Korean beer. Cass tastes like a watered-down West End Lager. Not a ringing endorsement. The markets themselves were brilliant though - fish, random foods, tourists everywhere, and what appeared to be a TV crew filming something while we were there.

Wandered back, grabbed cheese pizzas for the kids and called it a night.

Final count: 16,000 steps, no running, and no chicken to speak of. Unless you count eggs at breakfast. Otherwise it was pork, pork, and more pork.Okumaya devam et