Installment 5: Missing Wallet?!?!?

Installment 5: Missing Wallet?!?!?

National Museum of Korea
Josie really wanted to go to the National Museum of Korea and I had never been there, so first thing in the morning we went. There were tons of students there and I saw some Japanese students as well. The place is huge and there are pagoda gardens as well. We browsed through the floors and took pictures without flash. I usually walk pretty quickly through museums and Josie takes it in better. I love museums, but I find that I get tired if I am in them too long...don't know why. Took pics of the Korean alphabet, weapons...oh! and the first dictionary in Korean!! What else....just things that I thought looked interesting...plus it would be a waste for Jos and I to take the same pictures.

While she was looking through the Buddhist exhibit, I went to the tea shop to buy some tea. When she finished we decided to try to call Robin. We had tried earlier but no luck. We headed downstairs and decided to call home too. It was nice to hear their voices. We emptied our locker and headed for the pagoda gardens. We were taking pics and I saw a bunch of little kids...sooooo cute! I offered to take a picture for their teachers. Josie headed off to the large pagoda and I was videotaping...then I saw Jos on the other side of the garden. We quickly took more pics and headed back to grab a cab. We had to check out of Beewon.

Where's My Wallet?!?!
So we're in the cab and Jos checks her bag and her wallet is missing. We apologize to the driver (who is younger than all the other driver's we've had...and he says it's ok). Jos goes running back to the museum, with only 5,000 won in her hands... I didn't feel right going ahead without her. So I went back to the museum, with the intention of finding Jos and calling Beewon to tell them the situation and that we were running late.

Before I get to the main lobby, I hear Josie calling my name. She found it!! Thank goodness!! We made the call and Eun-Mi told me Robin called. We called Robin, who sounded ultratired. He might visit Toronto in March...otherwise we'll see him next September. We rushed back to Beewon and checked out.

What's Cooking in Korea?
Jos said she wanted a Korean cookbook. We were going to go to one of the big bookstores, but when we downstairs at Anguk station, we found a small bookstore. They just happened to have some English-Korean ones there, so she was pretty happy. That left us more time to visit Insadong.

Eating Flowers
We were pretty hungry, so Jos kept an eye out for some restaurants. We wanted to do Korean bbq, but alas we couldn't. Jos found a place that had interesting dishes. We had Korean pancake with oysters (Mom you would have loved it!), sundubu (tofu kimchi soup) and I had wild flowers with mixed vegetables and rice (like bimbimbap). It was pretty!

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
Okay...I didn't buy diamonds...but I bought some nice jewelry. Last year I bought some at a place and I went there again to get more. It's really unique. After eating I went to the jewelry store beside it and made friends with the owner and the girl working there. There stuff was soooo cute and they had white gold so I could wear it. I'm allergic to other metals. They were so nice and gave me discounts. The girl who worked there, Anna, is the same age as me and was talking to me in Korean. She was really friendly and we exchanged emails.

Goodbye Seoul
We headed back to Beewon to quickly re-pack and head to the airport. We took the limo bus 602-1 I think...I can't remember now...and we got there in an hour or so (and that's b/c they didn't pick a lot of ppl up). We had the fastest check-in ever! We were tempted to shop but didn't. Called home and I did yesterday's installment...accidentally only sent it to Jenni and Michelle...oops! Re-sent it just now for the rest of you. There was a 20min delay with the plane, but we finally boarded. They fed us again and I slept for a long time. Jos watched a movie. When I woke up, I had lost one of my new earrings...BOOOOOO...but I found it later when Jos reminded me to check if it fell on my shirt in the washroom. SCORE! Jos was able to tell the cabin crew about her various food allergies.

When we were getting off the plane and Jos was paged. They wanted to assure her that they were trying to make sure she got peanut-free meals. Only one of the several flights we have left is still pending for her peanut-free meal. How efficient and somewhat strange that they felt the need to page us for that. What a great airline. btw...I had cherry ice-cream and it was supergood. One of the crew, gave Josie a mango-passion fruit one as a substitute. Seriously ppl, fly with Singapore Air if you can one day...top notch!

Details of our day in Singapore in the next email. Gotta run. Need to shop, not a lot of time!

-Sam
p.s. thanks if you're still reading and sorry i don't often reply to your replies...i'm always in a rush!