Seoul Survivor

i've been living in and out of seoul for 7 years and admittedly i have taken it for granted.
i have never truly seen the beauty of the city and have just contented myself with subway trips to kangnam or ehwa university and the usual bus routes from the airport to the hotel.

so to prepare myself for my final days in korea i decided to take a downtown tour via the Seoul Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour.
this bus tour costs just around 10,00won or around $9 and goes around 26 popular tourist spots. you can hop off at any destination and hop on again at anytime. some of the major sites this goes to are the National Museum of Korea which is the 6th largest museum in the world, The War Memorial of Korea, Namsangol Traditional Korean Village, N Seoul Tower, Gyeongbokgung Palace and the National Folk Museum.

i wasn't able to go down at all the stops because i ran out of time! i would have loved to go inside the National Museum and take some photos outside as the place is so beautiful. i also missed some photo ops at the War Memorial which is so grand with all its monuments and aircraft on display.

since i was touring alone i was always on the lookout for surfaces to prop my camera to set in on the timer. surprisingly i was able to get good shots and crappy ones from well-meaning strangers offering to take my picture( i am such an ingrate). it's so disappointing how people can be so poor in organizing a shot. they'd always focus on the person being shot and not the view! geez... i could have taken my picture at home and tell the whole world i was in paris!
let me show you an example

crappy shot

with a use of a timer

i'm so bummed out that i wasn't able to bring the charger of my new canon camera( which is a pasalubong from hubby) so i settled on using my trusty old casio camera which never failed me on its battery life but would always give me sub-par shots. being submerged in icy cold water in Yosemite has something to do with it though but that's another story.at the Namsangol Traditional Korean Village (with the timer)

inside a traditional house

at the National Folk Museum (again with the timer)

gotta fit in the picture!

at the Gyeongbokgung Palace

a building facade, cute huh?

a cover-up for a construction in the middle of a busy thoroughfare

Cool Slogan Shirt by Cebuana Lhuillier

i was in the subway when i saw a korean guy wearing thisi wonder how'd he get that shirt?
was he one of the korean students who studied english in our country and shopped in an ukay-ukay store? go figure.

Me... A Thief?

in seoul it is not customary for them to give you a grocery bag unless you ask for it.

i was going in and out of convenience stores around midnight looking for something to eat.
i was holding a muffin( i bought in the first convenience store that i entered) when i went to the nth store and found nothing that appealed to me. so i went out the place then later realized someone calling me. it was the cashier from the store and thought that i stole the muffin!
yikes!
i told her in english that i bought the muffin from a different store. chincha! (really!)
good thing she believed me and didn't push it.
whew... that was a relief.
next time i'll always bring a bag whenever i buy from any convenience store.