Onto day 2, Friday. We both woke up very early, like 2am! Kim read in bed and I worked on this page. Finally breakfast was ready in the Hostel at 7am. (No pictures of the room yep, have to get Kim to approve the taking.)
Rain is predicted so we are on to an indoor activity, National Museum.
Things went down hill from there. We wanted to go to the Crafts Museum, which was not that far away, but it was really raining. We took the subway back to a large station, Seoul Central. We bought Kim a T card for the subway. We had been trying to use mine for both of us but the system is built such that once you use a card to enter, you can not use the same card to enter again until you exit! We put money on her card, which is a separate step at a machine that is hard to navigate and we put another 10,000 Won on mine so I now have 23,000. I hope I will be able to spend it. Kim mean time had been buying single use tickets that she was not able to add money to. Now she redeemed all of them for her “deposit”. We bought 2 folding umbrellas. Turns out that there was a “borrow” rack at the hostel full of umbrella that we could have used if we had remembered to look for such.
We had lunch at a small fast place inside the subway station.
Next we pretty much melted down and went home and back to bed. We considered Uber and Taxi. I think I was afraid of not being able to control the expense and each time we ventured outside, the thought of navigating in the rain even with the umbrellas drove us back. We did have lunch in a larger subway station. It was wild. English speakers on each side helped us. The menu had 5 items! No beer. Anyway, we made it back to the room and napped!
We got up about 6. Kim tried to use the books to make a reservation at a recommended restaurant near us. We struggled with finding what was near us since even though it seemed to have stopped raining we were not up for a long walk or subway ride.
Once out on the streets that I had explored last night, Kim gained new energy and we walked for at least 40 minutes around the area. I was so proud, at one point we came up to a main street and Kim was talking about which way to turn and I was able to point out that we were standing in front of our Hostel. We headed back into the marketish neighborhood. Kim came up with the idea of exploring restaurant’s that were on the second floors. I had been avoiding such because one could really not see how crowded they were and we were looking for something that was popular, had lots of people but not a long line. We could see the picture menus and get a little idea of the cost and kind of things they had thought it all looked pretty much the same.
We went up one that ended in a long line and we backed out. We choose another that had an elevator, Tom dictated using the steps, Kim was definitely slowing down. At the desk for this one, we were directed to sit in waiting seats. Another couple came in and we discovered there was a sign up sheet. Another group arrived and seemed to be 10+! The hostess assumed we were with the other couple, took both of us to a back room but there were two “food burners” and so we were in the same little room with them but not at the same table.
Both of them worked in Trading. She in cosmetics and he in Juice. I think they were in Korea for a couple days on a holiday. Maybe they were a couple but maybe not married? She commented on the Dock Workers strike in the US. They both said that generally the economy in Asia, even excluding China, is not great.