Namsan - Blogabond

For those who don't know the reference need to watch Goong (a.k.a Princess Hours) and the spin off. It's quite possible that the only person who will get it is probably my mom. Why? Because we marathoned that series hardcore. Well, not three days hardcore, but still hardcore enough for us.

So, this Friday evening, I went on an adventure with Jackie as well as three crazy, but fun Europeans. Jonathan from Sweden and Martin and Rene from Austria. We went to Incheon's very own Chinatown! Yes, there is a Chinatown in Korea. In fact, I don't know if there's a country that doesn't have a Chinatown. Please let me know if you find out. And no, Antarctica does not count.

Anyway, I have to say, it's quite beautiful during the evening. The streets are lit up with many lovely lanterns. It gives the area a wonderful charm. After eating a good Chinese meal (to which we owe Jackie thanks to her Mandarin and Cantonese skills), we decided to explore a park/garden in the upper areas of the town. It was high, but thankfully no stairs, meaning no pain. A very nice place to walk around, I have to say.

There was a nice pit stop at the top, to which of course the guys bought a bit of beer and enjoyed themselves as we all tried to hula hoop with this ridulously large hula hoops. And I mean ridiculously large. The guys could manage a bit of it, but Jackie and I, despite being female, could not manage it. It's not like women couldn't either. We saw not only a Korean woman work it like it was no problem, but children as well. To that I have to say, just what the hell?

Perhaps Koreans and Europeans have extraordinary hulahoop powers that us Canadians lack. Much look into this further.

After that, we went up to a statue of General MacArthur. For those who need a history lesson (I needed on because I'm retarded when it comes to war history), he was a very prominant American soldier during the Korea War as well as WWI and II. It was quite the sight, I have to say.

So, after some more walking, we finally decided to head back down. To our dismay, it began to rain and poor like mad. Luckily for Jackie and I, we had our umbrellas, but alas, the guys didn't. Mainly because they didn't believe us when we told them about the forecast. However, even with those, we still ended up pretty much soaked once we got back to the dorms.

The next day, the five of us decided to make our way down to Seoul and visit the mega trendy district of Myeongdong and the Namsan Seoul Tower. Myeongdong made me realize just how populated Seoul was, because holy crap, was it packed. Packed with everyone. Mainly with girls (it's a shopping area) but packed nonetheless. Me and Jackie managed to get free samples from a kind of Body Shop store, so I can't complain too much. I am quite glad I don't live in the heart of Seoul though.

So after a bit of Myeongdong madness, we decided to work are way up to Seoul Tower... by cable car. For now. The rest of that tale will come later. But lets start with part one.

Seoul Tower is situated in the middle of Seoul's Namsan's Park, which is is quite beautiful. Actually, I loved it there because the air was very clean, compared to the usual city smell.

We checked out the area around Seoul Tower as well as the Teddy Bear Museum. I enjoyed it, but it was pretty obvious that the guys didn't (which makes sense. They're guys.)

We went back down for a bit to eat (we decided we wanted to see the sight from the tower when it was dark), and when we came back to take the bus or cable car... well... it was rather um... packed.

So what did we do? We climbed to the top of that damn hill. Steep stairs in all. I gotta say, a half an hour of stairs? Kinda makes me look back at Fighting class and think that maybe the 'stair drill' wasn't so bad. But still, excuse me for my language but...

Fuck stairs. Several times.

Now that that's out of my system, once we made it back to the actual top of the tower, it was quite the sight. Seoul is big. Very big. If it was in a locker room with Canadian cities and it whipped off it's towel, it would make the others mumble with embaressment.

But of course, it's not how big the city is, it's what you do with it. ;)

Anyway, after all was said and done, we headed back, quite exhausted. Good day though, I gotta say.

This week, it's lotsa homework. But! Jackie and Jonathan just invited me to go check out the festival. So that'll come after.

Laters! Check out the new photos here and on Facebook!