Friday, May 20, 2011

Day 2 of Seoul!!

Hi everyone! Here's what we did Sunday, Day 2 of our trip in Seoul. Of course, the day began with peanut butter and jelly toast with coffee! and a subway ride...

63 City
We started at a place called 63 City. It is one of the tallest buildings in Seoul with lots to do inside and an observation level at the top. We had a nice walk from the subway and when we finally walked inside, the entryway had the feeling of a luxurious hotel. Since they did not have a map in English, we asked someone at the help desk where the food court was. He personally escorted us to part of the building, where another man escorted us to another part, and finally we entered an escalator. They took us to the extremely expensive French restaurant! We politely looked at the menu for maybe 30 seconds and turned around haha. (On a side note, everyone is always willing to help/direct/guide us to wherever we need to go. What happened at 63 City with the escorts is not unusual.) We ended up finding the food court on our own as well as the entrance to get to the observation level. After buying tickets, we took an amazingly fast glass elevator ride to the top. The views were incredible! The skyline of Seoul is unbelievable. Even though it was not a completely clear day, we got some good pictures and flip video. Oh, and the walls were covered with art. Not my taste exactly, but they were interesting. We saw a worker with a polariod camera so we figured she was there to take pictures with the Seoul skyline in the background. We awkwardly found out that was not the case. We now have a picture of us (actually pretty good), with a big picture of a baby crying in the background! It's pretty funny. We spent a good amount of time on this level before we returned to the food court and left 63 City for the next part of our adventure!
We found this when we were trying to find the food court.


View from the observation level in 63 City!

One of our favorite art pieces!
Original that we used as inspiration in our pose :)
 Han River
We walked by the Han River on our way back to the subway. We discovered a large park area with a small festival! We relaxed while looking out on the water, people watched (of course), and decided what to do next.

The Han River
 Myeongdong and Dongdaemun
 Back to Myeongdong we went! We walked around the large shopping area, bought Fluke a belt in Daiso, and decided we wanted to buy new wallets. We didn't buy any...yet! Then we made our way to Dongdaemun, the other main shopping area. We found Fluke an awesome pair of brown shoes to wear to work when the weather gets hot. (I think they are called boat shoes??) and don't worry--I did my shopping on Monday!

Namsan Seoul Tower
 At this point, we decided to take the bus to Namsan Seoul Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world! We saw views of Seoul during the day at 63 City, and now we wanted night views. Plus, Namsan Seoul Tower is super famous and one of those tourist-y things we had to do. We bought our tickets and ate dinner. We had a couple of options, but of course, we went to the burger place! We ordered burgers and chili cheese fries...they were soooo good!!! We wandered around the base of the tower and noticed all the Love Locks. We went to the gift shop to buy a lock so we could have one too! We carefully chose our lock location--it has a beautiful view of the city while still facing the tower. Next, we got churros! They were amazing and the perfect dessert since it was too cold for Cold Stone ice cream (the other option). When the sun went down, we went up to the top level of the tower. The views were amazing, but our cameras did not take amazing photos. Good thing they had professional photographers to take our picture! (Like they did at the Stratosphere in Vegas where you take the photo, look at it later, choose the background and buy it). We bought the pictures, spent a little more time at the top, then waited in a long line to go back down. When we got to the bus stop, we noticed a couple that looked like Adam and Ashley (Ashley was my roommate at orientation and Adam graduated from UCI). When we called out their names, the couple turned around!! We did not plan to meet up with them, but it was nice chatting for a bit. The bus came and we said goodbye, but we hope to see them when we go to Busan in a couple weeks.
View from the bottom.

Our lock!



Dinner!
Us with our lock!

View from Namsan Tower!



Back to Hongdae
By now we were exhausted, so we went back to Hongdae. Before heading to the room, we stopped at taco bell so Fluke could have his late-second dinner! When we went to sleep, we knew our plans for Monday, Day 3! Hope you enjoy our day-by-day entries and photos!

6 comments:

  1. Seoul does look amazing. It is especially great seeing it through your eyes. You write such that we are there with you, well almost. We miss all the great food you are finding. You two are amazing. Love and miss you.

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  2. Nice story and photos of your guys. That art work makes me laugh because I wondering what is so funny about those snow geese to those guys. Thanks,Love

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  3. What fun. Wish we could all be there.

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  4. that tower thing looks awsome at night!chili fries too

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  5. What a great second day in Seoul. I agree with your Mom Jen the way you write makes us feel like we are there with you two. Great pictures of the places you visited. Keep having fun and know that we all miss you two very much and love you even more. Bye for now.

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  6. this looks awesome! i like the view from the bottom and top of the tower! nice pictures too!

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