I'm feeling even a little better this weekend. The weather report on Wunderground said it was supposed to be 55 degrees and sunny today, so I decided to head to Seoul for some sightseeing. It's interesting how "55 and sunny" turned out to be "48 and raining steadily" most of the day!

I visited the Deoksugung Palace grounds but didn't stay long because it involves a lot of walking outdoors to various builings, none of which you can actually enter. It was a little too cold and wet to hang around, but I did take a couple pictures. There is also lovely photo slideshow on the Deoksugung Palace website, but the text is all in Korean. It, along with the other palaces in Seoul, is on my list of places to visit again in nice weather! Photos (top to bottom) are the main gate to the palace, the main palace hall, and a detail of the fancy painting on the ceiling in one of the buildings.At 3:30 PM today, I celebrated the beginning of my 9th week in Korea by treating myself to Dunkin' Donuts in Seoul. It was right outside the palace grounds and was a nice place to warm up and dry off. While sitting at Dunkin' Donuts, guidebook to South Korea in hand, I thought about nice, warm, indoor activities to do with the rest of the day and decided on none other than the Kimchi Field Museum where all my questions (and then some) were answered about Korea's favorite spicy dish of fermented cabbage and other vegetables. I kid you not! See the photos below and take a look at the museum's website by clicking the name of the museum above. It's impressive. I provided the link to the page in English, but it's available in Korean and Japanese, too. I especially offer these photos for my dear family members in the museum business and for the youth group members who have fond memories of visiting the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota during our 2003 summer mission trip.

Here is a lovely display where museum visitors are invited to look like they're eating kimchi from the manequin's chop sticks. After putting my mouth so close, I had to wonder how often they disinfect that thing.And finally, a display of just a few of the countless varieties of kimchi one may encounter here in Korea.While it is fun to laugh about, I have to admit, after being here in Korea for 8 weeks and eating kimchi almost everyday, I still like the stuff.