Sunday in Seoul

Sunday morning, what else but to go to church? As it turns out, even though Korea is a country with strong Buddhist and Confucian heritage, Christianity is its largest single religion. With Seoul's 10 million people it makes some sense that the largest single mega church in the world is here. I've read about mega churches, but all in the US. We went to the 9 AM service along with 5 or 6 thousand others, and there are 5 services... Very professional. Most of an orchestra, big screen TV's, 5 or 6 tv cameras, a 100 member choir...just keep going. We ended up in a prime spot in the balcony, the "foreigners" section, where headphones translated the sermon into 9 languages. All in all a very neat experience. Most of it was standard Christian service, but with two segments of talking in tongues and lots of singing. The size of the place itself was part of the effect.

Well, I thought the first photo above would be here, but its not, so the other photo above is the changing of the guard at the main palace of the Chosin dynasty which ruled Korea from 13 something until the early 20th century. The Japanese destroyed most of it at various times so there's not too much left, but it is still very large and impressive. Plus it is surrounded by two major museums anf a nice park. It was getting pretty hot at this point.

Again, better if the photo was here, but it is above. After the museums and palaces (there was yet another one, better preserved and hotter...) we headed off to a market to allow for shopping. before I go there, back to the palace museum. Lots of cool things there, but they had and entire room for the birthing and education of the future king. They had jars in which were kept the placenta and umbilical chord of the future king. These were placed in large stone containers and displayed in what we would say looked like an elaborate grave yard. Pretty different. They also began the education of the future king by playing music and reading poetry to the fetus while still in the womb. This little bit of information was the coolest of the day for me. Also lots of other good stuff like how to make tofu and soju (Korean alcoholic drink) with 18th century apparatus...

After a classic sit on the floor 25 course Koran traditional meal, we were left at a market that specialized in candy and rice cake manufacure. Here's me next to a future batch of rice peanut brittle or something close. Since lunch was so big Ed, a fellow non shopper, and I split a bag of rice peanut cakes for dinner, after a very tasty ice cream cone.

Went out looking for soju tonight but failed to find it...now 12:30. The hours of this thing are very demanding if you socialize at night.