warm and sunny days

deery-lou.
sunday was spent strolling around the jongno area with princess. on our quest for food princess took me to this area of jongno she had discovered the previous week. it kind of reminded me of the marina in sf minus all the white people and their attitude. the restaurants were much more upscale then most korean hoods. this was first date mecca. there were lots of cafes, galleries, and museums along the street. as we wondered about looking for food we stumbled upon this great find:

welcome!

people sure do love owls. we didn't go in. i'm not that much of a fan. however it did make me think of the owl tree/the owl bar [i forget the name] in sf. this bar is completely decked out in owl crap. it was like being at home. my mom was a huge owl collector. she's not so much anymore. we also saw a sign for the chicken art museum. chicken art! how fantastic. we never found it although later in the day we'd see a poster for it. instead we ended up in some neighborhood area that had awesome old style houses. i so want to live there.

my dream house

by the time we found our way out of the maze-like neighborhood we were near insadong. still no food and by now completely hungry. princess remembered that our favorite indian restaurant namaste had opened up a new one in the millennium mall complex. the quest had ended. as always the food at namaste was waaaay good. with full bellies we headed off to gyeongbokgong palace. here's a sample of what i saw there:

sexy guard

inside the palace gate

the rabbit

aren't we fab

a very friendly korean stopped me to snap his picture. he commented that he liked my hairstyle then proceeded to give us a brief geography lesson in 30 seconds naming all the countries he likes but has never been to. which lead to all the expensive countries and so on and so on. it was like he was so excited to practice his english. i basically nodded and smiled a lot. princess was pulling out her hair.

to see more exciting pictures of jongno & gyeongbokgong go here.

feeling exhausted and needing a pick me up we went in search of a coffee shop. seeing that we saw so many earlier we didn't think it would be difficult. however, we were wrong. the first couple of cafes we went into were completely packed. one of the places told us they had no seats and we'd have to put our name on a waiting list. oddly enough they had a few open tables that we could see clearly. coffee was a bust for now. we opted to hit toykino our main reason for being there. here's a glimpse into the beauty of toykino:

toykino sign

the bat-e

supergirl

smurfs

the guys at toykino 2, yes there are two of them within seconds of each otehr, was quite friendly and spoke english very well. he chatted me up a bit and mentioned that he liked my shoes. tk2 had mostly old-style toys. tk1 was where it was all at. i thought i had died and gone to heaven. at least my version of heaven.

for more images of teh goodies inside toykino go here.

on our way back to the station we stopped in at egg cafe for some coffee. it was very cozy cafe. we spent the rest of the wee hours just chillin. it was a grand end to a grand day. princess took some good snaps of me at egg. here's one:

egging it

stay gold & be well…

p.s. this ones for you hugel…