North Seoul Tower

Last weekend after my drum lesson Collin, fellow Villagee Teacher, went to Seoul Tower, one of the major tourist places on my "to do" list, and the highest point in Seoul. It's the CN tower of Korea, though it's on top of a mountian, not in the middle of downtown. And much smaller than the CN Tower.

To quote the brochure we were given, "Standing at the top of Mt. Namsan in the heart of Seoul, N Seoul Tower provides the city's highest viewpoint. It was Korea's first integrated communication tower, transmitting TV and FM radio signals for the metropolitan area since it was constructed in 1969. Nearly 48% of the people in Korea benefit from its antanna for various local ad nationwide FM and TV broadcasting stations such as KBS, SBS (yes, I have a tv station named after me) and MBC. Since opened to the public in 1980 as a hybrid recreation/cultural complex, the Tower has become the symbol of Seoul and has played a role as the city's most recognizable and popular tourist attraction."

It's not just pretty! It's usefull too!

Have I mentioned how much I love Korean brochures? They are either really really excited all the time about everything, or their translations from Korean to English leave something, well, lost in translation. Need I remind you of the "biggest funs of your life" from the Ice Fishing Festival? Gold. But the Seoul Tower brochure had this little gem that made me laugh until my sides ached:

I don't know if you can see it very well, but it's a picture of two people, a man and a woman. At first they are standing apart, but with a dotted line of sight illustrated for us between their eyes. And then in the next frame they are clasping eachother in a passionate embrace. This picture is on a page about the observation deck. I guess it's been known to make people fall instantly in love or something... that panoramic view will do wierd things to people. Sadly, I was not one of them.

Anyway, back to the tower.

Here's a picture I took last year of the Tower at night. This was when we were wandering around looking for a hotel the night before we went to the DMZ. It looks rather impressive all lit up like that, doesn't it?


And here's what it looks like upclose and in the day-time.

We took the long way up the mountain since my knee was still recovering from my spill on the rollerblades and didn't have full bending ability and thus was not stair-climbing-ready. (And, let's be honest, because we followed the wrong signs.) It added 3km to our walk, but also some beautiful scenery, as it took through a botanical garden.

Sadly, we didn't find the Botanical Garden for the Visually Impaired. I think perhaps our imagination of it would have been more fantastic than the real thing though. I imagined...scratch and sniff, speakers everywhere describing the flowers, maybe Stevie Wonder in the background...

Anyway, we finally made it up to the top of the mountain and went up to the observation deck. Unfortunately it wasn't a very clear day so we didn't see much. The brochure says that on a clear day you can see all the way to Incheon harbour. We could barely see the Han River, which runs through the middle of Seoul. Here's one of the better pictures I got.

They had signs on all the windows tellig the distance to major cities around the world. Here's me 10,607km from Toronto.

And 7,174.2km from my babies in Vancouver.

We also got to enjoy the "Sky Restrooms." Back to the brochure: "Sky Restrooms dominate the landscape atop N Seoul Tower and a spectacular aerial view of Seoul awaits those who want something extraordinary. These restrooms are not only well located in the sky, but they also offer all the comfort and services of a prestigious building."

To be fair, they were pretty nice.

And well-located bathrooms in the sky calls for...a photo shoot. (This is only one of many photos of me washing my hands...)

On the way down the mountain we stopped for some dried fish warmed on a gas hotplate by this nice lady. We opted out of the whole squid in favour of some less-offensive looking "fish paper" as I like to call it.

There was also a cool chicken-wire Spiderman hanging in the air.

And we caught the sunset on the way down too.

After our hike we were hungry so we went a few subway stops away to Iteawon, near the American Army base, where there are lots of different foreign food restaurants and shops that have sizes for western people and things like that. Unfortunately, there are also lots of loud foreigners there too...

I bought a wicked pair of sunglasses that I would like to share with you now.

This is me and Collin sexy-face-posing on the subway home. We wear our sunglasses at night.