Musings on a Korean statue

This statue epitomizes for me much of what Korea is about.  It shows a strong warrior ready for battle yet with the mien of a scholar.  It is framed by the hills surrounding Seoul that show the rugged beauty of the country.  If you pull back slightly from the frame you would see the tall buildings and heavy traffic that surround the statue.  The names on the buildings are ones we know well.  Samsung, Daewoo, Hunyadi show the economic strength and the vitality of the country.

We’ve pretty much mastered the subway system and have been running around looking at various sights.   There is not a lot of ancient stuff left but the government is making an effort to preserve what it can.  Although I’m not a great museum goer we did check out the Dongdaemun History Museum that has a lot of archeological artifacts that have been dug up and that show the long history of the area.  We’ve also seen some of the 14^th century gates and walls that were part of the original city.  We’ve hit various markets and street stalls and restaurants.  There's also some amazing architecture and bridges here.

 There are a lot of American food chains here but not the obvious ones.  A few McDonalds but mostly coffee shop types.  The Coffee Bean is big.  And so is Dunkin Donuts.  Interestingly a lot of French pastry shops and Italian gelato pop up frequently.  In fact we’ve been breakfasting every morning at the Paris Baguette which is right down the street from our hotel.

We’ve also been experiencing the joys (?) of globalization.  Jim was able to download and pay the gas bill from the Washington house and I just checked out an e-book from the DC Public Library on my iPod.  Sigh!!!!!

A few technical thoughts.  Several of you are having trouble posting comments.  My sister Pam found out that her browser will not support this.  That may be a problem for others.   Also, I'm having trouble downloading video and I'm trying to work that out.