Hitting all the tourist spots.

Yesterday, we arrived in Korea.

Annyeonghaseyo, Seoul 🌞

Myeong-dong

Myeong-dong has a different vibe in the morning.

You could say the difference is like night and day 🥁

Ssada Kimbap

First, breakfast at this kimbap chain.

We got the kimbap, of course. Also some kimchi fried rice and cold soba noodles.
Comes with unlimited kimchi and pickled yellow radish. I fell in love with these radishes when I had them in Japan. Helped myself to several servings of them 👌

Damn, that Daiso’s huge. Gonna check it out later.

SEOUL TOWER. That’s where we’re heading.

Namsan Mountain

Oh, we’re walking whole way?

Kinda lost. Google Maps’ Directions feature doesn’t work here for legal/war reasons.

We came across a few of these exercise parks. This one’s empty but the others were all full of the elderly doing a bunch of random movements. Still better than sitting around all day.

Does your grandma even lift?

Just keep heading towards the tower, I guess.

We eventually merged with the actual main path around the mountain.
There were tons of people walking here, mostly elderly since it’s a weekday. Stay active 💪😤

Ooh, pretty autumn colours~

Feels like the path is taking us further away from the tower but it seems to be the right direction.

Getting higher~

Crystal clear water.

Toilet stop. There was an outdoor badminton court too.

We started from Exit 7 and joined the red main path.
Also, Seoul Tower’s number IS UPSIDE DOWN. It’s supposed to be a 9, as indicated by the legend, plus there’s already another 6 on the map.

Okay, now it feels like we’re finally heading towards the tower.

_{Nii-chan Oppa!}

This path seems to have been temporarily replaced with this straw mat. Squishy.

Hey, I can see my hotel from up here.

As you slowly ascend the mountain, you’ll pass all these groups of people who had to stop to take their coats off even though it’s Winter. We had to do the same 🥵

It’s a duck.

Almost~

N SEOUL TOWER

N

오늘의 음료

It’s not that tall up close. It’s no Skytree.

One-time use phone chargers. That seems wasteful.

We didn’t go up to the top since it costs money and it seems like we can already see the whole city from the ground anyway. We just wandered around the shops and restaurants for a bit while we rested from the climb. My dad got some macarons from a dessert stand but it seemed like they were just taken out of the freezer because they were really hard.

The urban hellscape just stretches on forever.

Hey, I can see my hotel from up here.
If you squint real hard (with x-ray vision), you’ll be able to see the castle we’re visiting tomorrow.

Saw these a lot in Korea, selfies with these phone tripods that extended up to head height.

Back down we go…
Ugh, it was harder going down than up. We should have taken the cable car.

Well, it could’ve been worse. Ganbatte! Fighting! Hwaiting!

Following the roads back to Myeong-dong instead of going round the mountain again.

This cafe had a cat corner.

Coming from Hong Kong, it sure is nice to not have to dodge cars trying to run you over.
Also the pedestrian crossings make bird tweet noises like Japan.

Subway

Choo-choo time

I thought this was a pop-up ad but it was an alert for a missing person.

Crossing the river.

Covid friendly.

Gangnam-gu

Starfield Coex Mall

Todd Howard, you’ve done it again.

It’s a mall.

Wherever you go, there’s K-POP.

Dem robots are taking our jobs.

EGGSLUT

Starfield Library

The one photo everybody takes here.

The famous “must visit” “biggest library an online reviewer has ever seen” Starfield Library.

My sister warned me to be prepared to be “whelmed”. And, yeah, it’s a thing.
It’s not actually a library. Most of the books aren’t accessible (if they’re even real) nor was anybody there to read. It’s mainly a coffee space and tourist attraction.
My sister said it’d probably be worth a visit since she gets to go shopping at the same time.

There are benches around so we’re resting up while we wait for her.

I didn’t realise how ubiquitous K-Pop was before coming here. I thought it would be more like the idol culture in Japan but it’s EVERYWHERE. Every shop had some sort of K-POP collaboration going on. I kept hearing the same song being played everywhere too, it got stuck in my head for weeks.

TODD!!!

All the tables were taken by people working or studying but it’s gotta be hard to focus with so much tourist traffic moving in and out.

Video stolen from CNN

I didn’t try going out those doors but if I did I could have seen one of those “3D” billboards and a statue dedicated to the Gangnam Style song.

They also opened a new Starfield Library in another city recently (Jan 2024) that looks way cooler.

*googling the chance of a North Korean attack*

We didn’t wait long before my sister came back. She “didn’t vibe” with any of the shops there.

Off to dinner then ➡ ➡ ➡