I’m very unprepared for this trip, karen did most of the planning and i did almost no research :D…
Today, Ashley had plans with her own friends so we were to fend for ourselves in Seoul. After grabbing some freshly baked goods for breakfast, we went underground and somehow bought Karen a subway pass as well, with gestures and basic words, haha…
We went off to Junggok where we found the tourist information centre and a section of the hi-seoul festival that was taking place during our stay. i’m not exactly sure what the point of the festival is, but it’s very interesting and happy 😛
Our first stop was the information centre, there was a small section in which life-sized cardboard cut-outs of some celebrities were available for you to hug and take pictures with, haha… and a small souvenir shop, where we tried to but couldn’t buy any souvenirs because it was closed for Children’s day 🙁
We did, however, get the chance to make our own flower lanterns with a simple round lantern, glue, and pieces of…. paper? sure. it was fun but the day ahead of us would prove to be difficult on them. Afterwards, Karen and Cassie tried on hanboks! They had a lot of fun posing in the traditional dress and taking photos…. a lot of photos…
Several sales were going towards World Vision, mugs, bookmarks, rings, etc. Along the riverbank of Hangang there were exhibits of the old marketplaces and artistic pieces as well as timelines, and graphic designs. Along the side railings, people were encouraged to tie a ribbon with their wishes for the future written on them. We also met a girl who had just came back from a trip to Toronto to visit her Uncle, a volunteer.
aaaaand my camera battery died because i havent charged it since i got it :(… stealing cassie’s for now 😉
we then headed off to the shopping area between eujiro and myeongdong where there were a lot of familiar brands like adidas nike giordano GSTAR! (insanely expensive) puma, etc… and a lot of small stores, one in particular had lego people on shirts, bought myself a spartan lego-man 😀 but most of all, we found a uniqlo! i spent several won there….. …and plan to spend some more… mostly because i havent bought any pants yet – -; all tops.
Since the city is on holiday, u can only imagine the insanity in the streets. One thing about walking in a crowd in Korea, no one says excuse me, sorry, pardon me… its: *push *shove *cut-off *swerve…. u get the point. I asked ashley how to say those things but she said that they dont really say it, they just…… move around eachother silently with the occasional bump.
Stopping for a moment at the Angel-in-us Coffee shop, where the cashier didnt know what the english on the menu said, we figured out our plan to head to Namsan Tower, North Seoul Tower, one again heading through some more shops. It was unavoidable since the shopping district was so huge. Also being discussed were light plans for Australia next year 😉 hahaha
After we finally got out of the shopping area, we walked up to the cable cars that would lead us to the top of mountain where the tower was built. it was karen’s first ride ever on a cable car apparently. whee. Up top there was a teddy bear museum! and wireframed people in the air, and shops and food places, and of course, the tower observatory. the lines were long but moved quickly. at the observation level on the windows they show what direction a certain city is, and the distance to it. Toronto Canada was mentioned, 10,577km or somethin like that away from the tower. we didn’t take too long, michelle and karen got their fill of pictures and we left so that we had enough time to get through the elevator line and the cable car line. on the elevator level there were washrooms, which was also open to the skyline and the urinals were very….. interesting. and high. i wouldve taken a picture if there wasnt anyone else in there 😛 lol
A long day of walking and shopping, our feet were killing us. walked back to the subway and made our way home to go through our spoils and rest our heads.
Hanboks!
The Namsan (North Seoul) Tower
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