Pictures on Facebook

Since it is so much easier and faster to load my photos onto Facebook and everyone can see them from there I'm going to start using that.
I have a hard time keeping up with loading my pics to blogger. It takes too long. I like the layout, but I want everyone to be able to see our pictures faster.

I will post links to my photos on The Fitch Follower site.

Day 2 in Seoul

Brittany and Alex
Us in front of Starbucks. The only one in the world in a native language.

Insadong was packed that Sunday!
There were lots of "gift" shops and street vendors.

Changdeokgung Palace gate.

The bridge over the river or moat like thing in the palace.

The Confuncianist's believed they needed statue figures to protect the palace and the royal family.

The royal walkway. I didn't get the best picture to show the difference, but if you look in the top left corner you can see that the path steps down. There were 2 levels for the king and the queen. The king of course being the highest.

The king's receiving hall. This is where he and the queen sat on the throne.

The blue roof is the king's office building.

More of the main hall.

The "guardians" of the main hall.

The last king died in 1926 I think. There were others of the royal family that lived in the palace until the 1980's. So they of course had installed the electric lights for the early time of electricity.

The throne.

The king was "sun" and the queen was the "moon." The yin and yang harmony of Confucianism.

Looking at Seoul outside the palace walls.

The side of the roof of the main hall.

The figures of the middle in the courtyard helped determine where the court and officials stood and how close the people were to the king. The king always walked higher than everyone else.

The entry to the king's office.

The entrance to the queen's quarters.

I think this is the king's quarters.

You can see a raised pathway in this picture. I think the tour guide told us that there were covered walkways all through all of the palace. A person could walk through the entire palace without going outside.

Inside the king's quarters. There was some "modern" furniture.

Inside the queen's quarters.

The kitchen. Everything was modernized for electricity.

The entry for the ondol floors. Korea is famous for the heated floors. The floors were heated by fire.

This door was for a person to squat either out of or in front of inside. Then the servants would take the pot away.

The ondol chimney set away from the building.

This section of the palace was the most recently lived in. One of the princes wanted buildings built that were more common without the royal colors.

A view into the courtyard.

Inside the secret garden. This is the royal library where scholars would come to learn.

Cameron in front of one of the pools. Everything had Confucianism influence even the gardens.

The garden was huge.

The solide stone arch had significance when walked under.

If we had walked the entire path through the tour we would have walked 2.5 km. We may have walked half of that. Part of the tour was closed.

This is Juniper tree said to be over 700 years old. Our guide said that these are the trees they used to build the palace.

Some of the shops in Insadong. We were trying to walk fast so my pictures are blurry.

We headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags. We stopped at Subway to get sandwiches and grabbed a taxi to the train station. Traffic wasn't too bad so it didn't take long.

Train station.

On the KTX bullet train.

Going over the Han River in Seoul.

Our pottery.

Pear Blossoms in Naju

Some pictures I took from the bus earlier this spring of the pear trees. Unfortunately, it was a bit gloomy that day.

David's Engagement Party

Our recruiter and the son of our boss David is getting married June 7. He and his fiance' came home in April for wedding arrangements. They had their traditional pictures taken. We got to see them - they were amazing.
Samonim and Maxonim had an engagement party at the church. They took a bunch of the pews out and set up tables in the Sanctuary since they don't have a fellowship room.
The ladies played in the traditional Korean orchestra. They sing and play beautifully. David's sister Muriel sang and David and his fiance also sang.
It was really nice.
We were of course worried a little about the food, but they had a great selection and we got to try a few new things. I found out that I like at least one thing that is sushi - its a shrimp over wusabi (sp?) sauce on rice - I forgot what it's called, but it was yummy. We also got to try some sort of root that was sweet and crispy. And the greatest thing was the beef that tasted like pot roast from home. Yummy!
It was a great party!

The ladies group.
Muriel.

David and his fiance in their traditional matching attire.

Flowers Cameron got me.

He took me to the florist and had me pick out what I wanted. They had sunflowers which are my favorite. The girls who work there are so great at arranging them.

Day 1 in Seoul

On a bridge overlooking a park-like setting.
Through the bridge.
North Seoul Tower.
A view from the lower part of the mountain.

We had to wait in line here to get on the cable car.

The cable car.

I hate to put this in here, but just a tidbit of info: this is the type of dog they use for dog meat. I'm sure this one is a pet, but not all of them are. This one shows a bit of loving, while most are quite thin.
The cable car going up the mountain.

The line was quite long waiting. We waited about 45 min, but it didn't seem that long.

A picture of the Namsan Park street sign.

A view of part of Seoul through the trees while we were in line.

They know how to pack you in.

Going up.

And up.

And up.

A smoke signal. Never saw one of those before. Prett cool. It reminded me of my favorite part in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

On almost all of the windows there were cities and the distance from the tower to the city.

Here is Cameron in front of the Brazil window. We found that the cities were not necessarily in the right direction of the city. It was still amazing!

Since there were people in front of the NY window I went for Chicago since Aaron and Janine live there.

Seoul is HUGE!

Looking down into the park. No cars are allowed in the park. It has a very natural beauty.

The tower next to the tower. I'm assuming an antenna of some sort.

One of my favorite pictures of us.

Cameron was trying to get a picture of us with some of the city in the back. These 2 are a little goofy.

The city through the park trees.

The smoke signal.

There were vendors selling portraits and photos.

Looking up at the trees while we were in line to get back on the cable car.

Going down.

Snack vendors. The lanterns were all over what we think was a temple.