The Flight Home & Saturday Remembered

Sunday morning, Dave, Jim and I flew home. Happily, flight 0017 (Korean Air) had personal entertainment systems for each passenger, so we caught up on our movie watching and ate airplane-Korean-food (which is not as good as the real thing). Today, a few more pictures for you and a few Davisms:
Davism #1: "You don't have to be hungry to eat" - something we heard at each street food vendor, and every snack cart. We don't know how Dave maintains his figure, but the rest of us may be slightly plumper after Dave's eating schedule.
Davism #2: "Mind the gap" from his days as an English tour guide (can you imagine him driving a double-decker red bus?).
and a Jimism "I think we would have a better world if all the world leaders would skip." (Does this require any explanation? Except I should mention that after saying it, Jim skipped to demonstrate for us).

While we are at home, the gang back in Korea have already begun the workshop. Friday we met with our groups and had lunch with all the wonderful Korean students. Monday's schedule included a lecture about CSUN by Paula and a brief overview of SAGA (by Jeremy).

So now let's go back in time for some notes on our last full-group adventure on Saturday (6/3/06 - aka DAVE's B'DAY)...
The morning began with a group meeting in the lobby and then we took the shuttle to the metro station to go to Namdaemun marketplace, a large open-air wholesale marketplace covering a few central city blocks in Seoul. (Read more about the marketplace, go to: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Travel2//4). You can find anything from fresh fish, meats, produce, foods to trinkets and western clothing in the stalls, shops and vendor carts. This is a place to bargain, and as a westerner you will usually be charged more, but if you stay firm and are able to identify what you want and check prices at a few places, you will be able to understand the average price and then just try not to pay more than that. Some items were more pricy than in the states, an example being camera equipment because Korea has an import tax. The best items to buy are those made in Korea as they are the most reasonably priced and why not buy something at the source?

After Namdaemun, we went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, then the group split up - one group went back to Insadong, one group stayed at Namdaemun, and Dave went back to the hotel. By evening we had all returned to the University and along with Prof. Choi and our Korean friends, went for dinner to a wonderful Korean bbq restuarant where celebrated Dave's b'day with ALOT of food. The evening was completed with drinks, cake and dancing back at the ranch (Jeremy & Jairo's room) and toasting to Dave and the fun we all had on our adventure. It was a lovely, full, day. I'm uploading pictures from Namdaemun market, Dave's b'day party and the subway ride for the day...