Mom's visit - Saturday

Saturday we woke up, and we headed to the Jongmyo Shrine, which is one of my favourite places in Seoul. We met up around 10:30 (mom and I were late for our 10:00 meeting) at Tapgol Park, and we met a kind old man who informed us that he knew we were Canadian, because our clothes were neat and we were not wearing ball caps set at a jaunty angle. haha. We looked around the park, which was still nice because they had not taken down the lanterns from the festival yet.
We headed to the Jongmyo shrine, and we had a little walk around in there. I really like that place. It's not a flashy as some other temples or palaces. It's much more subdued, with less flashy painting and decoration. There were some tours of kids going through too, but they were Seoul kids, so mom's exposure to "HI HI HI HI HI I'M HUNGRY! HOW ARE YOU HOW ARE YOU?!" was enough for her to get the point of it, but not enough to annoy her. We spent a few hours in that park (the four of us now, Carol had joined the party the night before, if you remember) and then we headed off in the direction of the gallery I had seen and the NANTA theatre.
Well, that was the one time my sense of direction truly truly failed me. We walked about 45 minutes in the wrong direction. But, on the bright side, we came across an awesome restaurant. That was where mom had her first meal of SamGyeopSal, which no-one should ever go without if they make a trip to Korea.
(OKAY, so it's now June 28th. I'm sitting in a Starbucks, and I'm going to rack my brains to try to remember the details of the last few days of my time with mom in Seoul. I've been so busy/distracted that I haven't made time to sit down and get it all down, which is too bad, because it means that a few juicy anecdotes and tidbits have undoubtedly been lost).
We wound up taking a taxi back downtown where we went out for ice-cream (which made everyone feel bloated, if I cna extrapolate from personal experience. I mean, we had just had a HUGE meal). Then we headed to the NANTA theater to buy tickets. There were difficulties, because we arrived twenty minutes or some ridiculously small amount of time before the "appointed selling time" for the 7:00 show. There was some debating, and she finally decided that it would be alright to give us tickets, even though it would undoubtedly cost her her job. God! She wanted us to come back in two hours... I mean, yeah, sure, we'll just sit outside... what a jerk. anyway...
After that we headed back on our original route from Thursday night (I just remembered that I forgot to mention that I fell in a hole on that walk! I was just walking along, and FOOMP! Left leg goes into the ground. Fortunately, the hole was full of blankets. Unfortunately, they were all wet and gross) towards the Sejong culture complex, only to find out that it was in fact a theater, not a gallery. But then I spotted a sign for a gallery, and we headed towards it. We spent probably half an hour snaking around inside looking for the gallery, only to discover that we had gone in the wrong door, and that it was in the basement, not upstairs. The art was good... but not really my favourite mix of pieces. Some of them were good... including some photo reconstructions of childrens' drawings, but most of it didn't really move me at all. After that, to Starbucks for a coffee and then we decided to part ways for a while to rest after all that walking I made everyone do.
We met at the NANTA theatre at 7:00 or so, and once again, NANTA did not fail to impress. For the first three songs, I was so happy that I almost started crying. I love when random things suddenly turn into music. And it's such a funny show, I don't know how anyone could ever not be amused by it. And of course... the female actress doesn't really take away from the equation at all.
I was surprised to find that it was mostly the same cast as it had been when Jessie and I went with her parents last year. I definitely recognized the "head chef" as being the same guy. Pretty lucky, I think, considering that there are several different casts that perform on different nights of the week.
After the show, we headed to Itaewon and "Ali Baba's" for some Egyptian food and birthday hookah with Roberta and Rick. It was a great night. Mom did her best to embarrass me with childhood stories, but I honestly find that I am more embarrassed by everyone looking at me and expecting me to be embarrassed than by anything that anyone could actually say. The food was great too, and who doesn't love hookah? Of course, it made for a rough morning the next day, when I sounded like an 80 year-old grandma after 2 packs of cigarettes, a bottle of jack and and a chocolate shake.
Mom stayed out until about 12:00 or so, but the combo of jet-lag and all that walking caught up to her, so she went back to the motel early. I got a really nice birthday phone call from Vanessa, which I moved out onto the street to take, and then another hookah, and we closed the place and got kicked out around two or so. I said "Hey, we should walk home, I'm in the mood for a walk" and Mel and Carol were up for it, so I said I would walk them home to their area, and then head to mine. Well... I don't know Seoul too well, and next thing I knew we were passing the Korean War Memorial, and I was thinking "Hey, my hotel is just about a kilometer that way..." so I apologized, because I had walked them in exactly the wrong direction.
Then I went back to the hotel for another late-night phone call with Vanessa. haha.