Wednesday June 5th, 2019

Another amazing day!  Seoul is so big!!!  Today I got to see it from the Nasam Tower… A view I will never forget!  So let’s get started.  These are the places I visited:

Flower Boy Ramen Shop (Book Cafe)

Myeongdong

Nasam Tower

Flower Boy Ramen Shop (Book Cafe)

Because this drama is still my favorite Jung Il-woo drama, it was very important for me to visit the place where it was filmed.  Today I made one of my big dreams come true.  Being there, I could picture Il-woo all over the place, especially outside.  The inside is very different to when they filmed the drama.

Getting to this place is quite an odyssey!   First train rides and then walking.  It was supposed to be a 25 minute walk, it took me about an hour!  I am so, so thankful for the phones’ ability to guide one through many of the map Apps available.  I would have found it very hard to get there otherwise!

So from the train (I will write more about all the directions in my final page on this) you get to walk through really interesting parts… I enjoyed the murals.  That last one reminded me of the logo of Flower Boy Ramen Shop… I must be on the right way!

This is slightly uphill, but then you get to a park called Subong, and there it gets uphill for real.  Beautiful park… I enjoyed walking in it a lot!

inside the park I had another frog encounter!  A big one:

…and saw the cutest bus ever:

At last I made all the way to the top of the hill… the views were amazing!

And this is finally my beloved cafe:

Some things were very much the same:

Then others were a bit different:

Yes… so great!

The inside of the cafe is totally different…

The view through the window was so great:

 

Yes, I had the only food they sold… cookies! I went for seconds! I was so hungry and thirsty by the time I got there.  The tea was a lemon Lipton like tea.  It tasted like glory!  Gloria!!!

 

It was worth the walk… though I think there is a bus that makes getting there a lot easier!

Bye dearest Cha Chi-soo!

Myeongdong

This is a prime shopping place for tourists and Koreans, but for me it turned into something completely different!  It started the same for me…

WOOw! Look what was here…Haechi!!!

Suddenly at a square I discovered this sign… the square called my attention because it had many plastic giant characters. There was a map for an area called Zaemiro, a sort of cartoon and art street!!!  Of course I ventured in…

Wait this reminds me of… Il-woo!   I guess our flower boy is still with us!  He is wearing a Pororo towel… remember?  Pororo a penguin, is South Korea’s most famous cartoon character.

On the next photo you can see my adventure after this one… the Nasam Tower.

It was a fun place…

I went into this cafe/art gallery… and met the artist of all these cute  characters of Korean culture… I had a delicious ginseng tea!  on a gorgeous cup!  I ended up buying many things from her… a cushion with a king… two cups, purse mirrors, etc!  I really loved her work!

Back to the shopping area, I saw these rose ice creams… so incredible!

And I walked to Seoul’s Main Cathedral…the Myeongdong Cathedral.  I wanted to see what a cathedral would look like in South Korea…  It was elegant, with high gothic arcs inside.  Not much different than American cathedrals.  In Europe Cathedrals have way more details and artwork and are much older…

Yes there was a prayer taking place…

Nasam Tower

The view from Nasam Tower is so impressive. I think it’s because you first climb a mountain and then go on a tower, so the view is from really high above.  I had never seen or been to such a big city.  In Boston, there are about 5 million people in its metro area… so it’s about a fifth of Seoul’s!

To get to Nasam tower, you first take a box!  that takes you up through a ramp to the lift station.  It was a bit scary to be in this box crammed with a whole bunch of people!

When you get off the first thing you will notice is an area with hundreds of locks that sweethearts have left there…

The tower is beautiful:

 

This photo. Cr. Elite Traveler, put things in perspective for me…

WOOw!!!

I planned to get there right before the sunset so I could see the change from day to night. This next view is from the tower!

My favorite views were at night!  And look what I saw there!  Another Haechi!!!  This is the official symbol of Seoul.

I decided to visit the Hello Kitty Island.  I stayed late, so I had the place almost to myself!  It was very cute…

When I made it to the lyft station, the line was so long I decided to walk.  Yes!  As if all the walking I had done today was not enough!  My poor feet and knees felt it, there were a lot steps!  I tried to land as lightly as I could.  The views made it worthwhile!!!

Coming up is part of the wall that surrounded the original city of Seoul: Hanyang built during the Joseon Dynasty (1300’s).  It was so great to know that I was walking next to something so ancient!  The wall is called “Hanyangdoseong.”  This is some information about it from Wikipedia:

“The Hanyangdoseong (Hangul: 한양도성; Hanja: 漢陽都城), or literally the Seoul City Wall is a series of walls made of stone, wood and other materials, built to protect the city of Seoul against invaders. The wall was first built in 1396 to defend and show the boundaries of the city, surrounding Hanyang (hangul: 한양; hanja: 漢陽; the old name for Seoul) in the Joseon Dynasty. At that time, it was called Hansung (hangul: 한성; hanja: 漢城). The wall stretches 18.6 km along the ridge of Seoul’s four inner mountains, Baegaksan, Naksan, Namsan, and Inwangsan. At present, a 12-km section of the wall is designated as Historic Site No. 10 (1963) and is protected accordingly, along with the gates, water gates, and signal fire mounds. The northern, eastern, and southern sections of Mt.Nam (Namsan section) walls have undergone extensive restoration work, having sustained damage or been entirely destroyed during Japanese imperial rule (1910-1945). Seoul city is operating Hanyangdoseong stamp trail tour.

In 1395, just five years after King Taejo founded the Joseon Dynasty, King Taejo established a government office [Doseongchukjoedogam (hangul: 도성축조도감; hanja: 都城築造都監)] to build a castle to defend Seoul. He ordered Jeong Do-jeon to search for and measure a site.

On January 1, 1396 (by the lunar calendar), Taejo of Joseon held the groundbreaking ceremony. 197,400 young men were placed under civil conscription over two years and completed building the castle 98 days after the war along the mountains Bugaksan, Naksan, Namsan, and Inwangsan. The wall contained eight gates, all of which were originally constructed between 1396 and 1398.”

I got a really great map of it… It shows all the gates too.  I walked along the South west side…

What a grand day today! 🙂