We got up and left by 4:00AM! It snowed last night for only the third time in Wonju. We met a limo bus on the corner near our apartment that took us to Incheon International Airport. We got there about an hour and 1/2 before we were supposed to meet our guide and 4 hours before our plane was scheduled to leave. I finally got my passport back when we met the guide. I haven't had it for a week and I hate not having it in my possession.
My host family is traveling with another host family, minus the dads. The two moms went shopping at the airport for a bit to kill time. They bought super expensive gifts for their children's teachers. So far the annoying daughter of my host mother's friend has asked me to watch her eat a piece of chocolate, sit in a special way, and look at her pocket. Oh, and she has said "Stacey teacher" about 20 times. I was a little worried about her annoying the hell out of me, but I'm just going to try to let everything roll off.
On the hour and 40 minute flight, we actually got a meal. Very unusual! We got rice, salmon sashimi (YUM), and some other random stuff. We met our second guide shortly after arriving in China; he is Chinese, but he speaks Korean fluently. His name is Chaeng Song. We went to eat almost immediately; we had a variety of foods and they were placed on a lazy-susan to make it easier to reach each food.
We visited a few historical sites throughout the day. I'm not going to know names to any of them; I'm sorry. They were either written in Korean or spoken to me in Korean, and I had no English reference. One was called the Tables of the Empire Embassies (or something to that effect). There was another place where the front gate was square and the back gate was round (the emperors believed that heaven was round and earth was square...they would pray to these gates).
One of the things that impacted me the most was something we simply walked by. There was a long hall where people were singing and dancing. I wanted to stop, but our tour guide was on a mission. Those few moments in the hall contained so much culture. It was intriguing to see how people were just joining in with songs that they were familiar with. Or how people walking through would stop to watch a pair dancing a familiar dance. Or listening to the random Chinese instruments that are so unfamiliar to our ears. I wanted to stay longer...
We went to an acrobatic performance that was quite amazing!! Surprisingly, we were allowed to take pictures during the performance. Afterward, we went to another Chinese style restaurant. We then went shopping in the biggest shopping area in Asia. In this humongous shopping area, we only had 40 minutes to look around. We looked up and down the food alley; there were so many different and interesting foods: from silk worms, to sugar dipped fruit, to fried seahorse. Oh, I forgot to mention, it is intensely cold in China! Super cold! So, when we ducked into a shopping mall for warmth, we made our way to the basement where I bought some dried fruit for the first and second grade teachers. It was really cheap! With five minutes left until we had to meet the group, we stopped into a cheap souvenir place and were buying stuff quickly. You just put stuff in a basket, they add it up, you pay at the counter, get a receipt, and then get the stuff you bought. We bought some bags for 10 yuan...which is about a $1 a piece. My host mom had fun shopping that quickly. We grabbed our bags and ran out of there and across the street. She was so cute about it; so pumped!
We headed to the hotel (Schengen Hotel). I had a room to myself, because my host mom fought with the travel agency; they wanted to put 7 of us in two rooms. They said that it was going to cost an extra $150, but they changed it so there was no extra charge. It was AMAZING! There were two queen sized beds, a nice tv, a bathtub separate from the shower, a funny little toilet next to the normal one (I think it was a bidet...not sure), a vanity with a lotus floating in a glass dish, and the doors to the bathroom were frosted sliding glass doors. I took a bath and watched tv from the bathtub...oh so nice!! I fell asleep for a few minutes, so I decided that it was probably a good idea to get out and go to bed.
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