Seoul city tour

Day 9 – Seoul city tour

Seoul

Friday, 13 April 2012

We had a more comfortable night’s sleep on our mattress on the floor. The apartment is not noisy at all considering it is on a busy street and across from the railway station. It’s great to be in an apartment and experience Seoul in the same way as those who live here.

An early start but we still missed the start of the Seoul city bus tour at Seoul station, so we walked instead to the Namdaemum Market. This is the largest market in Korea, selling almost everything – food, clothing, household items. Although we looked at lots of things, we bought only a few souvenirs – the number of stalls, goods and people was overwhelming. Motor bike riders travel down what seem to be pedestrian ways but then motor bike riders seem to go through pedestrian crossings even when the green man is displayed!

A couple of hours later we caught the downtown Seoul city tour bus. This is good value at 10,000 KRW per person and allows you to hop on and off at any one of 27 stops around the city all day. Our first hop off was the Museum of Korea. This museum is free to the public and housed in a beautifully designed space. Lots of school groups. We spent most of our time in the prehistory section and the food hall where Anthony had pork katsue and I had a shrimp hamburger (tasted a little like a McDonalds fillet of fish but very soothing).

Then on the bus again to Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is the 10th highest tower in the world and built on a mountain. A very slow and narrow climb by bus with lots of tooting of horns. This is a popular destination for tour groups. There was still quite a way to climb on foot – we are definitely not as fit as we need to be! The high speed elevator to the top was likened to a rocket takeoff with projected images on the ceiling and sound effects. The views from the top were disappointing as the day had stayed cloudy. It was also very noisy with loud music and excited children. There is a lot of marketing around couples buying and leaving mementoes of their undying love so not a lot of souvenirs. Still no postcards as we know them. A green tea cornetto whilst we waited for the bus had the desired effect!

Next stop Dongdaemum shopping complex. This was advertised as “the place where you can buy the newest fabrics in Korea”. I was hoping to get some quilting fabrics. We didn’t find the fabrics, only many many shops selling clothing and accessories. Again, just too overwhelming and too hard to buy clothing in the right sizes!

Back on the bus for our last stop – Insa-dong Street. We remembered this as soon as we saw it. Insa-dong street is a street of traditional art, craft and and book shops, and traditional tea houses and restaurants. It was much quieter than the other places we had been to today and a welcome relief. There were lots of high end products, interspersed with the same merchandise we had already seen. We spent lots of money in one little shop, sitting whilst the shop assistant made us a lovely dish of green tea and some dried persimmmon flakes. We left with a few beautifully wrapped little parcels.

We’d had a long day of sightseeing and it was getting dark, so we headed back to the apartment by subway, picking up some sushimi for dinner at the Lotte mart. A call to Jay resulted in his wife coming down with a clothes horse and to show us how to use the washing machine.

All in all it had been a satisfying day.

	What fur is it? Namdaemum market [Map]		Namdaemum market Seoul [Map]
	Museum of Korea [Map]		Early pottery display Museum of Korea [Map]
	Anthony’s pork katsue meal at Museum if Korea [Map]		My shrimp burger at the Museum of Korea [Map]
	Seoul Tower [Map]		Tokens of love Seoul Tower [Map]
	View from ladies toilets Seoul Tower [Map]		Insa-dong Street [Map]
	Waiting for our packages to be wrapped Insa-dong s [Map]