Korea Day 2

Good morning from Seoul, Korea.  First of all it must be noted that today's blog is the product of a guest blogger, mainly me... Ted.. Karen's husband.  A combination of jet lag, strange food, a very hot and smoggy day, all nicely packaged in a ride through the city in the back seat of a van has claimed Karen.  She is currently sleeping comfortably and is feeling much better, and she has asked me to leave my mark on her personal blog.

Our tour today took us to an assortment of Buddhist Temples, Royal Palaces, Shopping Centers, and a revolving resturant in the tower that marks the highest point in Seoul.  While yesterday's tour involved about twenty something people from every hotel in Seoul, today it was just the four of us, so the tour guide indulged our every whim.

We began the day taking in the morning services with a high ranking monk (you can tell by the robe he is wearing...

The temple was jam packed with Buddhas of every size from hundreds of personal gold colored Buddhas...

 to a beautiful giant Buddha that sort of reminded me of the flying nun...

Many of the shrines had incredable paint murals that depected the life of a particular patron, or was some kind of a parable (I wasn't listining but the murals are beautiful).

Our guide told us the story of a very lazy man who died and was turned into a fish with a painful fin or something on his back, he made a moaning sound.  The fish below is him, and when the wind blows you can hear him regretting his previous existance of lazyness.

As I said, it is quite smoggy here, as seen from the resturant window in the tower where we ate (and maybe Karen got sick).

More Seoul pics...

This picture was from yesterday but I kind of liked it.  This was at an outdoor market

To conclude... we did have a wonderful day.  Tomorrow we are going to the DMZ and the United Nations center that straddles the border between North and South Korea.  Hopefully my whit will not cause any kind of international incident... (maybe I will get to see President Clinton if he has to come an get me). 

Please Note.....  The above blog represents my own words and do not in any way reflect upon or represent Karen's professionalism.  I am quite certain that she will NEVER let me do this again!  Good Night where every you are.

PS.. To my mother in law... Karen is doing fine, just a little upset tummy.