Seoul - Day 11

As the days were ticking down, we headed back to Seoul once again to meet up with Scottie's cousin again and his other cousin still in the military for lunch and post-lunch tea.  We dined at a very unique spot in Insadong called Balwoo Gongyang.  The food was based off of Buddhist Temple cuisine, which included a 10-course meal.  This website contains a good description of the type of food we ate during our meal.  This time I opted for the daechu cha, a jujube tea.  

And the tea was complimented with some dduk.  Dduk is a Korean sweet cake made with glutinous rice flour by steaming. Some common ingredients for many kinds of tteok are mug bean, red bean, and sweet red bean paste, Korean mugwort, jujube and other dried fruits, sesame seeds and oil, sugar, and pine nuts.

After lunch, Scottie's cousin dropped us off near Dongnimmun ("Independence") Gate.   Modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (hooray!), Dongnimmun Gate was built in 1896 to celebrate the formal "independence" of Korea from China and the creation of the Great Han Empire.  From there, we ended up walking around Seodae-mun Independence Park until we came across the Seodaemun Prison.  Since we have a thing for prisons, we decided to walk around the grounds.

Seodaemun Prison represents the suffering of the Koreans under the Japanese and their efforts for independence for 80 years between 1908-1987.  It was built in the late era of the Daehan Empire because of pressure by the Japanese.  Before it was a prison, it was built with the aim of suppressing the Korean patriots who were fighting to regain national sovereignty.

I was pretty fired up to see this flag on the grounds.  On the flag, the white symbolizes the land, the center circle represents its people, and the bars are for its balanced government and philosophical underpinning.

Nearby, we came across this Memorial Monument to Patriotic Martyrs.  This monument was erected by Seoul Metropolitan Government on August 15, 1992, to pay tribute of anti-Japenese activists and patriotic figures who served their term in Seodaemun Prison and many other patriotic martyrs who fought against the Japanese imperialists for restoration of Korea at home and abroad.

For dinner, we met up with some friends from Taubman Asia!  More pictures located here.  A map of our trip located here.