Trip to Korea - Day 3 (Seoul, Korean Hotel Breakfast, Namsan Tower and Myeong-dong)

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).

We were at the top, a happy moment

This is the original observation tower where people would go before Lotte Tower was built, which we visited on our first day. But this was a bit later, first was the breakfast.

Table of Content

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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 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.

Who wants eggs?

We have been in at least 3 major buffets in GTA (Mandarin, Dragon Legend and Dragon Pearl Buffet, all Chinese), and this one is on the same level with them, if not better.

It's definitely less hectic and more classy

We had at least 3 "rounds" (plates) of food and got enough energy to move to the next destination. 

The Way to the Namsan Tower

Hotel shuttle bus and a regular bus

This hotel offers a free small shuttle bus that goes to the city. Convenient.

Good mood after good food

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.

Here it is, yeah!

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). 

The person nearby suggested buckling up, which we did

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.

Namsan Tower

Our way there and back

We finally arrived in the right place. 

The sun was up, but it was still quite chilly, yet it felt fresh and a bit exciting.

I somehow really liked the feeling of this neighbourhood

Jiyul also had a good mood and enjoyed talking to her friend instead of me.

"Yes, I am there. Where should we go?"

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 attached the love lock at the top of the tower

We went up by the cable car, as there are too many steps to go up.

The view was clear

I didn't realize it at first, but the cable car would bring you up to the mountain, but that's not it. There are some restaurants around, and 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. 

This is how it looks inside the tower at the top

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. 

Maybe it was just a lucky day for us, but we really enjoyed being there.

The view from the top was great too, of course

After a while, we went to the washroom, which, by the way, looks like that:

You do your thing, and you watch. Cool (I didn't do it)

And then we headed down.

There is a classic Korean gazebo (jeongja)

There are also many restaurants. We picked the Mom's Touch.

Mom's Touch restaurant

Korean chicken burgers

We were looking for something to eat, and I already missed something a bit more western.

We got a classic combo

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).

Myeong-dong

Souvenirs

Here is what we got from this trip. 

This is from the store at the bottom of the Namsan Tower

And also we got thius pin and these keychains:

My work keys, Jiyul's home keys, and my work keys (from left to right)

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.

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 felt a bit insecure (to say the least), but still I went all the way until the end wearing it.

Links

Namsan Tower

Mom's Touch

Conclusion

Final thoughts