The Seoul of Asia

Thanks to a 4 hour delay by WestJet, we were lucky enough to get another executive luxury car transfer to the airport for our next trip.

We arrived early to have a bite at the WestJet Elevation Lounge – which was totally packed, a bigger line than I’d ever seen before. Thankfully we got to cruise on by…but not before spotting our old friend, Sneha, who still had to wait in line for a bit but caught up to us in the lounge. What a nice coincidence!

By the time we were wheels up it was almost 9:30, a 4.5 hour delay… I should have said no thanks to the meal service as I was falling asleep waiting for it, but it was nice to have. The flight was in the dark the entire way unfortunately, so we either slept most of the way (Ellie) or dozed on and off most of the way (me).

At Korea customs: good thing we left our bags of raw meat dripping with blood at home!

Due to the late hour of our arrival (after midnight by the time we got out of the airport), the trains had stopped running for the evening and the limousine express buses were much more infrequent and indirect. So we grudgingly took a taxi booked through the Uber app which was about $80. We hit the sack right away as we knew we’d only be getting a few hours of sleep (1:30 am in Seoul; 10:30 am in Calgary now).

After breakfast it was raining, so we stayed in the room until we could no longer see people on the sidewalks walking with umbrellas and ventured out. It was very interesting to see the hodgepodge of businesses in this area – new towers containing hotels and offices like ours, across the street from tiny mechanical shops like this one.

Thankfully we didn’t have to walk too far to find a bank machine that would work to withdraw some much needed cash – mainly for public transport. The public transport companies have their own widely accepted payment system called Tmoney, which you can only load with cash if you don’t have a Korean issued credit card. The exchange rate is about 1000 KRW : 1 CAD so each of these bills is about $10.

The first of a couple of visits to McDonald’s of course. I got the double beef bulgogi burger which was pretty good.

It was still raining intermittently so we headed to the COEX mall in Gangnam to check it out.

Right outside the mall are the Gangnam Style hands sculpture. The song seemed to be continuously playing on a video screen off to the left for anyone who wasn’t already vibing with the mood.

There was another sculpture a bit further down the plaza that no one was taking pictures of; something to do with ancient Korea but I’ve got no idea what it was as I didn’t see a plaque or anything nearby.

The artificial turf covered plaza was a good, albeit damp, place to practice a bit of gymnastics.

After the mall we headed to Bukchon Hanok Village – a residential area mostly consisting of traditional Korean houses “hanok” – one of the most popular areas of its kind, and clearly overrun by tourists at times. There were signs and attendants all over the place reminding visitors that only residents and overnight guests were allowed after 5 PM.

There were lots of people but we did manage to find a few quieter corners.

Including one of the few upper floor “observation decks” which was a tiny cafe on the 3rd level of a building, which had a pleasant view of the area.

Upon exiting the area at 4:58 (there were people still streaming in, not really sure what happens to them at 5… do the attendants start shuffling people out?) we walked by this chicken ginseng soup restaurant which I sadly never made it back to. Not only was the mascot cool, apparently the soup was pretty good too…

Before heading back to the room, we checked out Cheonggyecheon stream, which was originally a stream, then an open sewer, then a highway, and for the last 20 years back to being a stream and a very pleasant public space.

We made a stop at Gwangjang Market with several of the food stalls made famous by Netflix shows and other media, where I had some street meat and a delicious Korean twisty donut for dinner.

Ellie was pooped after our big day and passed out even before her instant ramen from the convenience store was ready.

On the metro on the way out the next morning we saw the stash of emergency gear in the stations and instructional videos playing onboard on how to use it.

The day had long been forecast to be rain for most of the day, so we planned to visit the (mostly indoor) amusement park Lotte World. Hoping that it would be a bit quieter than usual as today is the Chuseok holiday, like Thanksgiving for Koreans and when most people are supposed to stay home with family for the day.

It was raining intermittently, becoming heavier throughout the day, so all of the outdoor rides were closed – too bad, as the outdoor rollercoaster looked like fun. But we could still walk around that zone which was dressed up for Halloween, complete with murdered stuffies.

The island had a great view of the 553 m tall Lotte World Tower.

We got in a few fun rides anyway, like the log ride, the indoor roller coaster, another indoor spinning roller coaster (crazy!!) and a shooting game.

The lines became insanely long later in the afternoon – guess no one’s staying home on this rainy day – and some of the rides had wait times posted of 3-4 hours. Looks like Koreans are used to this though, as there were a ton of people with these collapsible seats for waiting in lines.

After we were done waiting in lines (our personal limit was an hour) we headed back to the COEX mall to meet up with my colleague Taylor and his wife Moonji, who are Korean and just happened to be visiting family at the same time that we were here. We met them in the very Instagrammable (and cool in person, too) Starfield Library. All of those lighted stacks are bookshelves!

We then headed to one of the many specialty coffee shops around. Korea has a super strong coffee culture and I was impressed by the number of good cafes.

Taylor introduced me to an Einspanner, a popular espresso based drink in Korea, which is a cold latte topped with whipped cream. It was really good.

After we said farewell to Taylor and Moonji, we picked up some convenience store junk for dinner. I love the honey butter chips and the banana milk in the center was recommended by Taylor.

Next day – another rain day – so we headed to the National Aviation Museum of Korea beside Gimpo Airport.

It was free; you could pay for some interactive activities – the best of which were booked out for hours anyway, but they had some very cool exhibits and plenty of signage in English.

One of the nice things about Korea was that there were numerous places to fill your water bottle for free, many stations which even had water filtration. No need to constantly be buying bottled water.

For lunch, we tried “The Original K-Burger” at Lotteria (yes, the same Lotte that owns Lotte World). I had a shrimp burger which hit the spot for sure.

Back on the metro into town.

I thought we could visit Tapgol Park where a famous scene from Squid Game Season 2 was filmed, but it was really raining when we came out of the subway, so back to the room it was for the rest of the day… 😦

The next time we ventured out of the room was at dinner time for the first of several Korean BBQ places on a street around the corner lined with cafes and restaurants.

It was very good and I was surprised to see actual charcoal (a special huge briquette, in this case) rather than gas at the table.

Ellie was all over the K-Pop Demon Hunters salty snacks for an after dinner snack.

On our fourth morning, finally – it’s clearing!

It was a gorgeous morning so we headed out early to take full advantage.

We popped out of the metro at Gwanghwamun Plaza, and encountered the statue of the 1400s era King Sejon the Great.

We were at Gyeongbokgung Palace a few minutes before they opened. There was a big lineup to get in (free!) but the crowds dispersed in many directions once inside the gate.

Here we are in front of Geunjeongjeon, the main hall of the palace, dating to 1395.

Despite the hundreds (thousands?) of people, there were still plenty of nooks and corners around the grounds where could be alone for a moment.

We got to catch the rehearsal of the changing of the guard performance outside the east gate, very close to the action but without having to line up for it.

We ventured over towards the National Folk Museum of Korea which had a few interesting spots in the garden, such as this line of guardian statues.

And a few other hanok style buildings.

These Guardian Posts reminded me very much of the Totem poles we see on the West Coast of Canada.

On to our next stop: Namsan, a mountain in the center of Seoul, topped by the N Seoul Tower communications tower/observation deck. There are several ways to ascend Namsan: taxi, bus (there is a public road that goes about 80% of the way up), cable car, or walking. We took one of the most popular walking/hiking routes which begins at Namsan Baekbeom Square park on the northwest side of the mountain.

There was a lot of history on the lower part of the way; including a guardian tiger statue, and other statues honoring heroic Korean leaders from the past.

There were a lot of people going up today. I overheard someone say that the wait for the cable car was 90 minutes. Who can blame anyone on a day like this though?

As we got higher, some viewing platforms on the side of the path offered excellent views of “downtown” Seoul.

I jumped at the chance to get a Pocari Sweat from this vending machine about 3/4 of the way up. I remembered it from Japan and liked it a lot. It really hit the spot as it was over 25 degrees and humid for the uphill climb.

We passed a Love Lock zone, where the amount of locks was insane. Never seen anything like this before. They do remove them periodically so there must be dozens placed every single day.

Finally, we made it to the top – cheers from the panda!

There were a few interesting and very Korean things in the multi level concourse at the base of the tower, in addition to several food outlets: The World’s First OLED Tunnel (by LG), and a PopMart vending machine.

After waiting an hour when we had lunch outside, we went up the tower. The views were great and uncharacteristically smog free.

The restrooms at the top had a great view – check out the urinals in the mens’ room. Ellie took a pic of the stall in the womens’ side and it was just as good of a view!

We took the bus down instead of hiking back. It dropped us off at Gwanghwamun Square which was much busier now than 6 hours earlier.

Since it was so nice out we headed to Yeouido Hangang Park, on the south side of the Han River, where Ellie was very excited to rent a four wheeler bike.

It was very curious to see how the locals bring tents for the day to hang out in the park all day. Makes sense to guarantee shade!

We passed by the Yeouido Cascade Plaza, a great big fountain and wading pool that stretched almost all the way to the river. Would be a great spot on one of Seoul’s hot summer days.

There were plenty of street food vendors along the path.

And a jetski rental station.

We went to an all you can eat K-BBQ place in Myeongdong after it got dark. Real lump charcoal at this one – yum!

After dinner we walked around Myeongdong a bit along the very lively streets full of shops and tons of street food vendors. It was a great way to end a gorgeous day.

——- fast forward to our last days in Seoul at the end of the trip – intervening days to come in a separate post

I wanted to get in another one of Seoul’s many wonderful urban mountain hikes, but the weather did threaten rain so I went out alone to hike up Inwangsan, one of the peaks on the north side. I came out of the metro station on the wrong side of the street, but before correcting myself was presented with this statue of Yu Gwan-sun, an brave teenage independence activist during Japanese colonial rule in the early 1900s.

After sweating up some very steep sidewalks through one of the many forests of apartment towers, I found what I was looking for: the Seoul City Wall, most of which is over 800 years old. Many sections were removed to make way for urban development but up the granite mountains there are great continuous examples like this that are intact and have been restored, with a maintained trail beside it.

Guard stations were constructed on this section of the wall in 1968 when the North Korean military infiltrated Seoul. This section was not open to the public again until 1993.

The views got better and better the higher we went, and soon all of Seoul was at our feet.

The trail was varying stages of dirt, rock steps, steel and composite stairways, boardwalks, and steps hewn directly into the rock.

It really shows how dense Seoul is from up here on the summit, where a number of people were lounging around enjoying the view.

The hotel we’re staying at for our last night is in the complex with the red lined towers in the center of the photo.

On the backside of the summit, the trail was much less travelled.

And simply ended at a gate supervised by CCTV cameras. Didn’t bother to translate the sign to see if it explained why.

I completed my hike at the Changuimun Gate, and a statue of Superintendent General Choi Gyu-sik, a police officer who was killed during the 1968 North Korean raid as mentioned above.

One of the other great things about Korea – public washrooms everywhere! Unlike some other regions of the world.

Back at the hotel by dark, great view of the red towers over The Hyundai mall.

A spectacular buffet awaited at the hotel – well earned after the hike!

Our last activity on a rainy day in Seoul was a visit to a Samoyed Cafe that Ellie really wanted to do. I’m always a bit nervous about these animal cafes as they don’t always treat the animals well, but this one seemed to have decent reviews and it wasn’t a let down at all. You could tell that they take great care of their doggies. It was a very cuddly and cute way to end our stay in Seoul.