On day 3 in Korea, we woke up in DoubleTree by Hilton hotel thanks to Jiyul's friend, Sunok. We had a good sleep and headed down for the famous Korean hotel breakfast.
The main plan for today was to climb up the Namsan Tower (N Seoul Tower).
This is the original Seoul observation tower where people would go before Lotte Tower was built, which we visited on our first day. However, let's start with breakfast.
Table of Content
- Korean hotel breakfast
- The Way to the Namsan Tower
- Namsan Tower
- Mom's Touch Restaurant
- Myeong-dong Neighbourhood
- Souvenirs
- YouTube video
- Relevant Links
- Conclusion
Korean Hotel Breakfast
A buffet with millions of choices
I enjoyed our hotel breakfast in many places we visited in Canada and in Miami, the US. It was usually a classic American breakfast with a few choices, and we liked it so much that we started to replicate it at home every once in a while.
In Korea, apparently, the hotels are competing with each other in the field of better breakfast, and these competitions lead to the fact that some of them offer something really extraordinary.
We are going for "the highest value first" buffet strategy
There is even a special type of tourism in Korea when people would only go to the fancy hotel in their own city (when there is a deal) to enjoy the stay and the breakfast.
The Way to the Namsan Tower
Hotel shuttle bus and a regular bus
Unfortunately, the hotel shuttle bus didn't bring us to the final destination, so we had to transfer and take another one. Jiyul got a bit lost, but I was always better at finding directions than her.
The second bus took us directly to the bottom of the tower. The bus was a bit old, but there was a phone charger (USB plug, which was useful).
I recorded quite a bit during the drive for our YouTube video because driving is a good opportunity to show around as we passed many places familiar to Jiyul, like the bus terminal she used before, etc.
Namsan Tower
Our way to the top
We finally arrived in the right place.
The sun was up, it was still quite chilly, yet it felt fresh and a bit exciting.
Jiyul also had a good mood and enjoyed talking to her friend instead of talking to me.
Her friend Eun-nyoung was like an operator in The Matrix (Tank) who was virtually guiding us everywhere and planning every move. I can plan too, you know, look at my happy face.
I insisted on buying a love lock at the bottom of the mountain
Jiyul asked why I want to do it. I said because we love each other. And we already did it before in the Toronto Distillery District, so it's becoming a tradition.
We went up by the cable car, as there are too many steps to go up on foot.
We have met a nice Filipino lady there who helped us to take some photos together and directed the right posture. After a small talk, we found out that one of her friends or relatives lives in Mississauga, Canada, so I gave her my business card just in case. I tend to give my business card to many people whom I met while travelling.
I didn't realize it at first, but the cable car would bring you up to the top of the mountain, but that's not it. There are some restaurants around and a lot more to see, plus the tower itself has a few levels inside.
The way to the top feels similar to CN Tower, and at the top inside the tower everything was a bit older than in the Lotte Tower, but somehow the atmosphere was cozy and chilling.
There were people, but not as many as on the Lotte Tower, and there was no pressure to leave, which I really liked. No one pushes you, and you can easily go up and down, and at the top there are places to sit, so it felt really comfortable.
Another thing I am learning after my trips is that good planning is really important. We can't really predict how we are going to feel in a particular place where we have never been before; it could be good, or it could be bad, but we can do a lot to increase our chances of feeling good:
- Research the place and other reviews
- Check the weather and try to go when it's nice
- Prepare all you need (water, money, all other supplies)
- Go early when you have enough energy
- Have a good sleep and a good breakfast before
Or maybe it was just a lucky day for us.
After exploring the top, we went to the washroom, which, by the way, looks like that:
And then we headed down.
There is an observation desk, millions of love locks and quite a few restaurants. We picked Mom's Touch for today, but it took us a few moments to find it.
Mom's Touch Restaurant
Korean chicken burgers
We were looking for something to eat, and I already missed something a bit more western. Jiyul knew about this place, and we finally found it.
The food was decent, nothing really special except for the sauce (which was good). It reminded me of KFC and Popeyes. However, as this restaurant is located in the tower building, you get a really cool view while you are eating, so we sat there for a while, charged our phones and decided that we still had energy to hit one more place today, the Myeongdong Cathedral (The Cathedral Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception).
After looking at the map and planning the route, we headed out.
Way Down From the Tower
Taking stairs and walking down is definitely worth it
We decided to go down from the tower by stairs instead of taking the cable car.
It was a bit chilly, but the air was fresh, and the way down was definitely easier than the way up would be. It was way longer than I thought it would be, but we enjoyed it.
Koreans also write something on the snow
There are a few nice-looking gazebos on the way, around some of which there are some machines and equipment for physical exercises.
In some places, the view is really stunning.
At the bottom of the mountain ("SAN" in "Namsan" stands for the mountain), we found a bus stop where we would catch a bus to get to the Myeong-dong neighbourhood.
With some troubles and hiccups, we finally got to Myeong-dong. I was leading the way, and at that point I discovered again that even though my wife is Korean and I am Russian, I can find places and navigate in Korea better than her.
She has a direction problem, and I have a memory problem, a perfect match.
Myeong-dong Neighbourhood
The streets, the Cathedral, Pangyo and the way home
In Canada, my wife brought me to a Myeong-dong noodle place in Mississauga (Myungdong Noodle Shabu Shabu) quite a few times, but this was my chance to actually see this neighbourhood in Korea,
Now, as we are a bit in a rush and on the schedule, unfortunately, we could only pass through the street to get to the Myeongdong Cathedral, as the way back from the middle of Seoul to Yeoju takes a couple of hours already and we don't want to get home late.
This is the first and most important Catholic church in Korea. Not that we are very religious, but it was an important cultural place that we wanted to see.
We sat there for a moment to pray and to rest.
After that, we had to take a bus, which we barely caught, and went to Pangyo station, where we would take the subway home (Yeoju).
Pangyo is a modern planned district with high-tech companies, kind of like a Korean Silicon Valley, and as it's a planned district, it looks quite unique, especially with mountains in the background like in the photo above.
The robot wanders around (looks like they have a defined route), speaks up something (I definitely heard a hello in Korean) and has cameras in a few places. I guess the point of it is that it could film a crime, or you can tell it to film it, or it can call the actual police right away. I don't think it would shock the purp (a perpetrator) like R2-D2, although it would be fun to watch.
I also wanted to take the following photo to show how Koreans are lining up in the subway.
They do push each other during rush hours, and it gets crazy on busy downtown stations (as my wife told me), but still, such lineups are nice to see.
Thanks to my wife's father, who picked us up from there most of the time, we could get home soon after that. Taking another bus or a cab from there to home would be horrible.
Jiyul used to be a professional violin player, and I was asking her to play something for a while. After some convincing, she brought her old fancy violin to the living room.
She had to tune it up first, obviously
She feels a bit upset that she had to quit a long time ago, but still, she played with it a bit, and I recorded it in the YouTube video. Sometimes we joke that one day she will bring the violin to Canada and play in the Toronto subway.
Souvenirs
What are we bringing home?
Here is what we got from this trip:
This is from the store at the bottom of the Namsan Tower
And also we got this pin and these keychains:
I am not a PRIDE supporter or anything like that, but somehow I decided to give it a shot and to take the one with the rainbow for myself and for my work, and to stick it to my work backpack outside. The logic was something like only the real man would have the courage to show vulnerability and not feel weird about a particular colour or set of colours, or something like that.
I think there was a Friends episode with Phoebe's boyfriend with something similar.
And I also wanted to do it because we had a really good time on that tower and to remember this happy moment.
When I later went to Russia with this rainbow keychain on my backpack, I often felt a bit insecure (to say the least) in public places, but still I went all the way until the end wearing it.
YouTube Video
This one is 30 minutes long
Relevant Links
What was mentioned in the article
- Myungdong Noodle Shabu Shabu: https://www.mdkalguksu.com
Conclusion
Final thoughts
So far, the time at Namsan Tower was the best experience for me in Korea. As I mentioned before, I think it was a combination of the fact that it wasn't as crowded as on Lotte Tower, we were less tired, and the mountain itself is very beautiful.
After the tower, everything was a bit less exciting, but still we managed to have a run through a couple of important places in downtown.
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