We had a free day today and we’d planned to go to a traditional Gugak performance and visit a nearby art gallery. Unfortunately there were no tickets left for the performance. So then we decided to see if the local tourist information place could help out or suggest a different option. They couldn’t.
So we decided to go to the area anyway because we wanted to try out the subway system. Unfortunately, it was raining. We set out for the subway station and found a cathedral instead. We wandered in, but there was a service in progress so we wandered out again.
The subway station was being rather elusive, but we found a little coffee house and the smell of pastries was too much to pass up. We went in and were served by the slowest barista in the world! The aroma was coming from their croffles, so we just had to try one. It seems to be a croff between a croiffant and a waffle.
We still couldn’t find the subway station, but eventually found a large man.
He turned out to be guarding the entrance.
We broke out our T-money cards and tapped them in the appropriate place on the turnstile , said “open sesame” and we were in. The platform was huge, as long as the Elizabeth line in London. You know when the train is about to arrive, because a little fanfare plays on the PA system and someone says something unintelligible in three languages.
The train was quite crowded, and EVERYBODY was looking at their phone. We only had to go one stop, from Euljiro to City Hall, so we got off when the train stopped. And found ourselves in Euljiro! It turns out that there are two stations, Euljiro 1 and Euljiro 3. We’d managed to walk the wrong way in the morning and ended up at 3. I’ve no idea why there isn’t a Euljiro 2.
Anyway, we headed off into the rain looking for the Seoul museum of contemporary and modern art. We did eventually find it, three floors of exhibition halls which prove that Seoul and Oxford have something in common; they both do pretentious art!
It was still raining, so we headed back to the hotel, via another cook-it-yourself chicken dish and spent the rest of the day chilling.
Steve and Diane on Tour 