Wednesday--June 26

This morning I went walking again--along pretty much the same route.  I have decided that I will walk only along the major streets.  Once I get on to the side streets, it would become a maze of apartment buildings that all look alike!  The above is a school bus.  Much newer looking than the ones we have at home!
David and I went walking together--this way I can expand my morning walks somewhat.  There is quite a nice walking path along the river, and these are the stairs to go down.

 And this is how one gets across the river!  I made it!  and I only needed David's help once!

 On this river path, there are more work-out stations.  David is demonstrating how to use this one!

The city (as I have mentioned before) doesn't do a lot of maintenance in the parks and such, so here are some seniors cleaning up the brickwork.  Some of them are wearing masks.  I saw a number of people (mostly elderly) wearing full-face masks.  With their masks and hats, they look a bit like creatures from the Star Wars movies.  I had wanted to take a picture of one, but I didn't think it would be appropriate!

 Lots of wild-flowers along the river.  These are black-eyed susans, I think.  I am disappointed that there are so many flowers that look just like the ones we have at home.  I though that there would be more unfamiliar ones.

There are a lot of churches in the city.  Regardless of how large or small the church is, each one has a large spire with a cross on top.  At night, all the crosses are lit.

This is a Wedding Castle.  It's a huge building where couples come to get married.  Often there are several weddings taking place at the same time.

This is the large lobby of the wedding castle.

This is one of the rooms where the weddings take place.  Only the ceremony happens here.  There is a banquet hall upstairs where the dinner takes place.

This is a really cool item--one that we should have here at home.  Most stores and restaurants here have this.  You take your umbrella, close it, insert it into this plastic sleeve, and then it won't drip all over the place.  When you leave, you just drop the plastic sleeve into the recycling bin.

 I can't get over all the large buildings on the main streets.  They are so large, so close together, and just covered with advertising.  Quite distracting.

Koreans must have a thing about large fridges.  This store had many large fridges on display.  They are taller than David, have 2 freezer drawers as well as a large upper area.  I have no idea why they would want them--most apartments are quite small.  David's definitely couldn't manage a big fridge like that!

The fridges are large, but the stoves consist mostly of 2 or 3 burner countertop stoves.  There were very few full-size stoves in the stores.

I took this picture because the shrimp on ice looked rather disgusting.  But after I took the picture, a store employee came up  "No picture, no picture!"  But it was too late.  The deed was done.  Shrimp, anyone?

For lunch we had Kimbab--rice and veggies rolled up in seaweed.  It actually is quite good!

David has finalized the arrangements for our side trip.  Later next week, we will be going on a 72 hour visa free trip to China.  It was quite impossible for me to get a visa for China, so we will take this option.  It requires that we go to a third country, so we will spend a day in HongKong as well.  Doesn't that sound exotic?

Anyway, that's all for now!