Amanda Takes Off...

I adore Changdeokgung (창덕궁) Palace. It's in central Seoul and huge. When you're inside the complex, the city just fades away. Usually, it's a tour-only palace, but on Thursdays from the spring through fall, you can pay 15,000 won and get access to most of the grounds on a self-guided tour. To protect the grounds, they limit admission to 1,000 people per day. Last year I went with my parents, and Thursday I went with Good Man.

Changdeokgung Album

The weather was so beautiful, and Good Man was really patient with me. I had dragged both lenses and my tripod along because I'd wanted to do some infrared photography. I really only should've brought the 18-135 mm lens. My infrared filter is threaded for that one, and I hate changing lenses midway through activities. Good Man, despite having a really bad cold (that I gave him), was a good sport.

More details in the gallery.

After we walked the large loop around the palace, we met Bill in Insadong. I had ten rolls of film I wanted to give him, because I knew I wouldn't use them. While we were chatting, the Crazy Rabbit Abuser showed up.

Rabbit Abuser

That is a rabbit on top of his hat. He had two of them there. He started chatting with us, asked Bill if he was American (he's Canadian). Then, he told us he was Chinese, tipped his head back, and "accidentally" dumped both rabbits on the ground.

Squeezing Kids

The rabbits started hopping towards me, but much as I wanted to pick them up, I wasn't going to. No worries! Some small kids came and grabbed them, squeezed them, dropped them. Oh, joy!

Under the Hat

Then the Crazy Rabbit Abuser collected the rabbits, threw a hat on them, put a wig on the hat... By this point a huge crowd had formed.

Crazy Rabbit Man

He then took out various things, threw them on the ground, and started asking if anyone in the crowd was a rabbit on the Chinese zodiac. Now, someone must have been, but nobody admitted to it.

In a Tennis Ball Can

Look at that tennis ball can. Look closely. What's inside? One of the rabbits.

At that point, the three of us finally left.

Later, we saw the Crazy Rabbit Abuser again at some Labor Day protests. Good Man didn't even want to cross the street because he didn't want the Crazy Rabbit Abuser to see us.

Korea is not a good country for animal lovers.