First Visit to Seoul

This week we took a brief trip to Seoul for a day of Rest & Relaxation. The green space (below) provided a sense of relaxation, and the American-style hotel bed provided rest. 

Gyeongbokgung Palace - after visiting the Palace Museum for two hours we decided to skip walking through the Palace proper. It reminded us of Beijing's Forbidden City.

 

Instead we walked along the Gwanghwamun Square, which happened to host a food festival featuring displays of Korean food and beautifully carved gourds.

How about this for the next pumpkin carving contest?

This particular street reminded us of Hong Kong because of its angles.  We found all of Seoul's street extremely clean, gridded, well marked, and not too crowded.

We decided to ride the cable car up to North Seoul Tower instead of visiting the ancient palace. From the top we could view 360 degrees of Seoul. 

We marveled at the list prices of the Korean currency. I had a hard time getting used to such large numbers but 1 Korean won = .087 US cents so our ticket price in USD was $5.24 each.

N Seoul Tower is one of the top ten places in the world that people can lock down their love. "Inspired by ancient Chinese custom, two lovers seal a padlock to a gate, chain,[ or fence] and throw away the key. This locks down their love for eternity"
(http://geekandsundry.com/10-places-to-keep-your-love-locked-down-across-the-world/) 

We also stumbled upon this fun demonstration at the tower courtyard.

We entered the cable car area to the singing of "Monster Mash."

Overlooking Seoul. I love green space, but here the leaves at the Namsan Park looked like autumn.

We ended our stay in Seoul by choosing our own cut of beef and taking it upstairs to a Korean BBQ restaurant where we cooked the meat at our table. The hot wood ash grill reminded us of Argentinian asado.

The restaurant provided the side dishes - for a fee of course. A pleasant way to end our stay.