Saebomi met us at Mass and then we headed up to Seoul Tower to try again. It was not nearly as crowded and we made it on the second cable trolley up to the base of the tower. I'm not one for heights, and being glass-encased and riding up a mountain with only a steel wire to support the 30 or so of us was super scary. I couldn't stop gripping the handle or making this face, apparently.
When we got off the cable car, we had about 100 stairs to climb to get to the place to buy tickets to go up into the tower. Before we did that, I stole a shot of the tower from the ground.
We got in and traveled to the highest floor allowed by elevator. Here's one picture of the view, absolutely beautiful!
Here's the group of us in front of the windows:
After Seoul Tower, we went a few stops on the subway to meet Saebomi's family for lunch. We ate at a Japenese fusion restaurant and we ate sushi rolls and donkasuh (fried pork tenderloin). Luke and I got ours served "wet" so it came in a chicken/egg broth. It was all very delicious! It was also very nice to meet Saebomi's family. Her brother, Barney, works for the Korean baseball league. Her mother is beautiful and so kind. All of them speak English as if they were born in America, it's amazing. Here's Marissa with her Korean family:
After lunch, we walked to Gyeongbukgung (Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven) for a tour. The palace is on a big plot of land and belongs to the Joseon Dynasty and was built in 1395, only three years after the dynasty was founded. It served as the main palace during that time. It was reduced to ashes during the Japanese invasion of 1592, and then was restored beginning in 1867. During the second Japanese invasion, it was torn down in 1915 by the Japanese-run government. Restoration has been ongoing since 1990. Needless to say, there is a lot of history on these grounds. Here's Karen (with Benny) in front of Geunjeongjeon (meaning: all affairs will be properly manages if you demonstrate diligence), the main throne of the palace.
Here's all of us on the yard in front of the National Folk Museum (we didn't go in), but the big open space, beautiful buildings, blue sky, and pretty snow were too photogenic to pass up.
After the palace, we were exhausted and freezing so we headed back to Dongbaek. I had to teach the next day, you know! Or so I thought.I woke up Monday to a bunch of snow on the ground, but had no call from school so I tip-toed around Marissa and Karen to get ready, and trudged to school. When I arrived my awesome boss said, "I'm sorry. You should have called! We have no kindergarten today." I joined 4/5 teachers in the teachers' room who "should have called" and we had an outright whine-fest until noon when James decided we also weren't having elementary classes so we could go home. Here's the view of the snow from my classroom window:
We rounded up our visitors, Marissa, Luke and Karen, to go to the movie theatre to see Avatar. After Avater, we went back to the 5500 for Karen's last meal. Her flight left early the next morning, so to avoid the hassle of trying to get there in the morning in the snow, we left that night. We literally caught the last bus at the last minute to the airport, it was very lucky. Liz Teacher and her brother Matt joined us for dinner. They had just returned from their trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. 
Karen and I made it safe and sound to our hotel that evening, but around 1 am I got the worst bought of food poisoning I've ever gotten in my life and spent the remainder of the evening/morning hugging the toilet. Thankfully, it missed Karen so she wasn't miserable on her flight. We got her to the airport in plenty of time, and she made it home just in time to go to back to school the next day! I made it back to Dongbaek in time to go to work, but I didn't, I took a sick day and tried to sleep the rest of my day away. It was pretty good timing, because Marissa and Luke left the next day (Wednesday) to visit Gangneung, where Luke lives, until Thursday. So I had my apartment back to myself to rest and recoup without ruining her trip.
To my surprise, though, upon returning to school on Wednesday I had two new students, Vicky and Olivia, and three more that were planning to visit on Thursday! More to come on that...
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