Don't Panic (now where's my towel?)

This morning I woke up and got online. This was waiting for me on Skype:

Stellar: Wow Christina, have you been up on the news about the potential war within Korea? This is insane.. I hope you are updated about it because its getting a bit intense: if you don't know here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26korea.html?hp 

Luckily, I was pre-warned, so I didn't freak out. Stellar was still online, so we got to have a talk:

Christina: Hey, this is funny. Last night Sunghun was talking to me about this stuff, asking if I had heard anything from back home, and now I see this first thing when I log on. It's pretty scary, but the general consensus in Korea is that it's mostly posturing on the part of government officials because elections are next week. Re-declaring North Korea as their "archenemy" is them trying to remind people of the constant danger, the same way Bush tried to stir up fear after 9/11.
Stellar: I know, its kind of scary though! How is everything going?
Christina: Things are fine. There are banners everywhere for the election, and little campaign cars are all over the streets blaring music and info about the candidates. It's kind of hilarious.

Stellar: LOL.. Korean style campaigning. Gotta take in the hilarious moments :)
Christina: They apparently get pretty worked up about the whole thing, so I can see the stuff with North Korea blowing over afterward (as long as Kim Jong Il doesn't decide to be a genocidal dick). I have to say, that line from the article about turning Seoul into a "sea of fire" gave me pause.
Stellar: ME TOO. I tried to translate that into Korean and I was like..oh ok it makes sense. But in English...ahem..right.
Christina: Yeah. It sounds pretty evil-dictator over-the-top. You can totally imagine some ridiculous sci-fi villian going, "If you do not bow to our demands we will turn your precious planet into a SEA OF FIRE! MWAHAHA!"
Stellar: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA

So, yeah. The news is scary, but Seoul is still intact. Here, I will show you it!

Today I went to Bukchon, which is a historical district full of hanok, or Korean traditional houses. My guidebook had a little to say about it. Apparently Seoul officials have been protecting it as a tourism resource, but ironically the more tourists it attracts the more it incentivizes the locals to convert their houses into shops or tearooms. This pisses of the officials who want to keep its pristine residential flavor, but I think right now it has a nice feel to it. It's mostly residential, but on the main roads there are some fun things for tourists to do.

Since the houses are so tightly packed and the roads are so windy, the guidebook recommended not worrying about keeping your bearings. It said that it's most fun to get lost and enjoy the scenery. "Well!" thought I, "This is a task for which I feel that I am qualified!"

I was doing a pretty good job of staying lost until...

Wait a second... I know this place! This is the Prime Minister's house. I came here a few weeks ago.

...DID I JUST FAIL AT GETTING LOST?

Ahahaha. But really, this was a good thing. From there I knew the way to Gyeongbokgung Palace, which I had wanted to see anyway.

Remember this place? With the stone dudes and the penis statues? Well, apparently I didn't notice before that some of them have fangs. This is going to give me an idea for a book about Korean vampires.

Exploring the parts of the grounds leading up to the museum (where I went last time) is free, but if you want to see the palace you have to pay admission. Well, I was feeling stingy last time I was here, and I figured, "How cool could it possibly be? Besides, there's a free museum right here."

But this time I had just dropped $140 dollars on a visa, so the price of admission didn't look so unreasonable. Besides, I had seen parts of the palace from the hills near Bukchon, and my curiosity was piqued.

And it was beautiful, of course.

I had dinner at a place that I thought was a tearoom but turned out to be an Italian restaurant. Huh. They served me overpriced, undercooked spaghetti and I was a bit put out. I might have to go back just to find an actual tearoom.

And to finish, here's a picture of a pigeon eating out of a dog bowl.

EDIT: Pasting from Skype has made my HTML completely spaz out. I can't get the text to be normal-sized, so I had to choose between tiny and huge. You get huge. Enjoy.

EDIT THE SECOND: I went through line-by-line and took out all the freaky code. At 1:00AM. Because I couldn't go to sleep while it still looked weird. God, I have issues.