Grand Adventure Day 13

I slept badly, my only guess was due to heartburn from eating spicy Mexican food last night. With all the Korean food I've been eating, who expected that the thing to give me heartburn would be Mexican food. Dragged myself out of bed late and was going to do a load of laundry, but the hostel was out of laundry detergent. Finally, I headed for the Seoul Museum of Art near the City Hall stop. Grabbed a ham and cheese muffin from a nearby bakery. Actually, I'm not sure if it was "nearby" as I kinda got lost along the way. Eventually, I found the right street to turn down and got to the museum.

The first exhibit I came across was artist activism against the rapid westernization of Korean culture forced onto society by the government in preparation for the Olympics (I don't remember what year). As a dumb foreigner with no background on Korean history or folklore, I really didn't understand a lot of it, but obviously that's not going to stop me from looking around.

The room I wandered into after than was an entire exhibit dedicated to one artist. It was interesting to see how her subject material changed over time, as well as the style she painted. I don't have any pictures of any of the pieces since they had signs in English asking people not to take pictures. Some were painted with dark, bold strokes; others had a pastel colors with a more fantastical feel to them; portraits of people she met on her travels; self-portraits of herself mixed with traits/features of people she admires/wants to be.

My favorite room was the one depicting the future. Maybe satirizing is a better description. An anti-surveillance hoodie made of what looked like a thermal blanket. A series of flashing screens asking questions about the nature of AI and if electric sheep dream? A critique on how often we think about things compared to our own mortality as a man had a computer to track his brain on how often he thought about shopping vs how often he thought about death. My favorite, and possibly the creepiest thing I've ever seen, a prototype for an End of Life machine: basically just a machine that strokes your arm and is supposed to provide comfort to you in your final moments, the robotic voice droning, "I'm here to ease your pain because none of your family and friends could be here." It sent a shiver down my spine on how real it seemed.

Wandered out of the museum and started toward the Deoksugung Palace close by (I really wanted to get my money's worth from that ticket booklet)

In one of my few instances of excellent timing, I also managed to arrive just in time for a changing of the guard ceremony.

After the ceremony, people could get up close to the guards and take pictures with them. Inside, I walked through a garden and a large grassy area. I think by this point I may have been starting to get bored of palaces as all the architecture started to look the same. This one did have a couple of other unique features:

Not sure what was in here

A fountain

A pond

Also, there was a short tour in a smaller building of the historical clothing worn by the elite and the emperor.

Wanting to leave, but too early to go back to the hostel, an example of vacation-Alan popped up and decided to head back to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza just because it was a place I could just hang out and either write or read without anyone bothering me. I got there and instead immediately started playing PokemonGo, taking the gym in the middle of the plaza. Then wandered a couple blocks away to do a raid. Getting back to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, I decided on Quiznos for dinner. I know what you're thinking, what the hell am I doing eating Quiznos? Well, there is a good reason: on the sign outside they were advertising, if I remember correctly, a sandwich called "Traditional" which was supposed to have Bulgogi beef, korean vegetables, and hot sauce. See, that sounds different than anything I've seen state-side, and it sounds pretty good. Well, the sign on the outside had it, but I couldn't find it on the menu inside. So, I'm standing in front of the cashier trying to figure out what to say, so I just told him "traditional" and he just smiled, nodded, said something in Korean, and then told me the price, as if he was like, "Yeah, man, I got you. I know exactly what you're looking for." Unfortunately, when I got back to the hostel, I found that we were not on the same page - I unwrapped the sandwich to find a basic ham and cheese with veggies. Well, luckily, I also bought some Toppoki from a vendor at the subway station, so that made me feel a little better.