Seoul (Day 1) - Stuff we saw while we weren't eating or getting rained on

We may have spent most of the day eating, but that doesn't mean we didn't see anything else.  Here are the highlights:

SUBWAY
The Seoul subway is impossibly clean and surprisingly easy to navigate, hindered only by the fact that every single map seems to be oriented differently with respect to North.  Keeps you on your toes, I guess.

   

CITY HALL
The guidebook described the City Hall building as a "tsunami of glass", and that seemed about right.  It's a very cool building.

 
SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART
We tried to see the Seoul Museum of Art, which is reputed to have fine collections, but were stymied by an unforeseen Monday closure.  Still, the sculpture garden outside had some great pieces.

This is one of the coolest sculptures I've ever seen.  The perspective games it plays on your
eyes are unbelievable.  Even standing right next to it, I never felt like I could get it
entirely in focus or see what was really going on.

There's something a little unsettling about this one.
Are they weeding, or is there something more sinister going on?

NANTA
Amanda had read about the international phenomenon that is Nanta.  Think STOMP meets Blue Man Group in the kitchen -- it's a fun, silly, crowd-pleasing show that consists of mostly wordless performance and lots of percussion.  Despite the high energy, jet lag made it difficult to stay awake.  At times more interesting than the show itself were the audience reactions:  The theatre was full of folks from all over the world (I'm assuming most were tourists like ourselves), and they were all enthralled and totally into the experience.

Outside the Nanta theater was this "reimagination" of the Mona Lisa.
The artist had superimposed animated bombs and planes that exploded
into flowers.  Weird.