Day 3: Namsan Tower

Heads up this is going to be a long post with a lot of photos...

The morning started off very slow. I was tired from exploring yesterday and decided to take the day off to just relax (didn't end up happening, but oh well). I stayed in bed until 11 am and then quickly walked over to a convenience store to grab breakfast. I also got some ramen for lunch because I knew I was going to be too lazy to go out and get a meal. My morning was spent reading and playing on my phone until I was hungry enough to go to the kitchen downstairs for food.

I met a human! I haven't seen very many people around the hostel I am staying at up to this point, but when I went to make lunch I met Katie. Katie is from Australia and she's visiting her brother who lives in South Korea. We ended up eating lunch together and shared the places that we had visited so far. She recommended going to Namsan Tower during the day and also checking out the Hangeul Museum. I had already planned to go to Namsan Tower, but I was thinking of going in the evening so I changed my plans to go a little earlier.

After lunch I decided that I really needed to do groceries. Buying fruit at convenience stores is kind of expensive and I did not want to keep eating baked eggs for breakfast. South Korea has several big stores where people go to do groceries including e-Mart and Lotte Mart. There is a Lotte Mart about 20 minutes from my hostel so I took a subway there. I was too scared to take a bus after my first experience so subway was the next best option.

Lotte Mart puts Costco to shame. It's beyond huge with several floors that have everything from clothes to homewares to food and makeup. It was so big that it took me an embarrassingly ridiculous amount of time to figure out how to enter the building and find the floor that I needed. Then I got really turned around trying to find the food that I wanted, but I was eventually able to get almost everything I was looking for. When I was going to check out there was an entire shelving unit dedicated to k-pop magazines and albums, including a lot of BTS and Black Pink. It was so cool to see k-pop albums for sale in a grocery store!

The best way to get back to my place was to take the bus that gave me so many problems the first day I arrived. However, I didn't miss the bus at all this time and I even got the right stop on my first try! After I put all my groceries away I began the trek to Namsan Tower (also called North Seoul Tower). It is a representative landmark of Seoul and also one of the tallest towers in the East. The tower is on a mountain and people can bus, walk, or take a cable car up to the tower to place locks around the railings with different messages.

Since my hostel is fairly close to the mountain I chose to walk. KakaoMap said it would take approximately 30 minutes, but I stopped to take lots of pictures along the way so it took a little longer. The walk to the base of the mountain took me through back streets of Yongsan-gu where I found beautiful art and really cool little restaurants. (I took a picture of a pretty door for you, Susan)

I was really glad to have my data SIM card otherwise I would have gotten so lost trying to get to the mountain. Once I made it to the base I didn't need the map anymore because there were lots of signs. The hike up consisted of lots and lots and lots of steep stairs... Fortunately it was not busy so there were no other people around to hear me huffing and puffing. It definitely felt longer than 20 minutes, but it was very pretty!

Me enjoying the forest vs. how I felt about all the stairs:

The trek was definitely worth it! Namsan Tower is beyond amazing and it was so awesome to wander around and read the locks. There were also many cute places to take pictures!

People were filming something while I was there.

After wandering around and looking at all the locks I decided that I wanted to make my own too. Fortunately, there are lots of places to buy locks at the top. There was a vending machine on the deck, but there were also lots of different locks for sale in the merchandise store in the plaza nearby. I bought one of the smaller locks and it was 8,500 won (all the locks come with a pen too). The message on my lock means "Let's be happy!".

I spent about an hour and a half wandering around and then went into the plaza again to get some food. There were several restaurants, an arcade, lots of photo booths, and even more places where people had hung pictures and written messages. I ended up getting popcorn (that I had been able to smell from outside and craving since I arrived) and some tea with aloe in it. There were so many places where people had written things about BTS so I had fun finding and reading those.

I started to walk down the mountain after eating my food. About 5 minutes down I saw a sign for a botanical garden and thought it would be fun to find that. However, it was starting to get dark and I got to a point where the signs were saying no trail so I decided it was a bad idea to keep looking for a trail in the dark by myself in a foreign country and I turned around. I'll have to try it another time when it is light out and not as terrifying.

Sorry mom and dad! I won't go wandering around in dark forests in the future.

I basically ran back to the main path and then found my way back to the stairs. This path was well lit and not as scary!

I made it back all in one piece and it was such an amazing day! I left around 3:30 and made it back around 7 pm which ended up being a really good time to be at the tower. It was sunny and warm on the way up but I was still there when it was getting darker and the lights were turned on. It wasn't busy at all when I went, which was wonderful! There were even several points when I was walking back that I could sing loudly to my music because there was no one else around.

N Seoul Tower from the terrace of my hostel

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(September 28, 2018)

Distance walked: 10.5 km