The folding option on my new bike was nice. I took it on the subway across the city and rode home.

Seven+ hours on the bike takes its toll.

On the way I got to go past some beautiful palaces and also through some incredible markets. as well as a staggering number of huge buildings covered in neon. I have barely scratched the surface of the city. The markets are not dissimilar from NYC Chinatown, only much bigger and stranger. There are tanks filled with live squid and stores of all variety. These are local markets, the tourists markets are something else entirely and quite dull in comparison.

Here is a view of the mountains as you approach Gyeongbokgung. This is facing roughly north.


The US embassy is up ahead and to the right. I rode past it and was astonished to see hundreds of police with riot gear, three foot long sticks, and the riot shields familiar to me from the Korean student protests of the 1980s. There were about a dozen huge buses with metal screen windows as well.

I think I missed something good. I'll have to get a good contact about protests from the students if I can.

I was struck by how young the police were. They all looked like kids.

This is the Heunginjimun traffic circle. There are several of these structures around in large traffic circles that I saw today.


Pretty exotic to my eyes and quite cool.

As I took this picture, the woman selling baskets to my immediate right stood up and asked me if I was from America. I know that answer! It's in lesson 1! But that didn't assuage her. She really wanted to know in order to express her undying devotion for Jesus (she knew "I love Jesus" in English, but nothing else). She associated America with Jesus, inevitably, so there I was a representative of this theocracy, to receive her gratitude.

Really she should thank George Bush.

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