South Korea Adventure - Day 1 — Namsan Tower and Myeong-dong Shopping District

I recently traveled to South Korea with my family last March 1-6, 2018. It was a rather short trip since our flight to South Korea was delayed to 7pm on March 1 and our flight back to the Philippines was at 2am on March 6. This is the result of seat sales. Haha! Nonetheless I enjoyed the vacation especially escaping work for a couple of days.

The first item on the itinerary was N Seoul Tower, or Namsan Tower. Cable car, one of the ways of going up to the plaza, is the best option especially for a tourist as it slowly gives you the view of the city. Upon arriving at the plaza via the cable car, you would be welcomed by their version of the love padlock bridge of Paris. Sightseeing, eating, visiting the museums, and relaxing are the main things to there. You could spend an entire day there and you wouldn’t run out of things to do. Different shows are also performed in the open area of the plaza where we got the chance to watch local musical instruments being played.
Namsan Tower in the background
Locks of Love

The view is spectacular at the observatory deck of the tower as it gives you a 360 panoramic view of Seoul. The capitals and distances of different countries are placed on the windows around the deck. So if you are feeling homesick, this is the perfect place to go to. The only thing that bothered me there is the “show” in the elevator while going up there. I think that it is too much and too oriented for children. I would rather have a view of city slowly rising before me. The other attractions that we visited are Hello Kitty Museum (which my mom loved), and Ssentoy Museum & Showroom Exhibition. Unfortunately we didn’t stay there until it became dark as I am interested in night photography.

After Namsan Tower, we went around Myeong-dong shopping district. Cosmetics, cosmetics, and cosmetics - maybe around 80% of the of the shops are cosmetics which shows how much Koreans loves cosmetics. You would see among the stores are the typical brands; Nike and Adidas for footwear, and Uniqlo, H&M, and Zara for clothes. However, the best part of the shopping district is when it becomes dark. Street food and clothes stall carts starts appearing out of nowhere! Socks, pants, shirts, jackets, coats, accessories, bags, and basically everything is there. My brother and I were able to look around and there are different types of food to choose from! The only thing that hindered me from trying everything is that the food is expensive!!! The lobster tail that I got to eat costs 15,000 won but it was worth it. Some other food that we were able to try are the egg bun, fish cake and sausage skewer, chicken skewer, and fried milk.
Egg Bun Egg Bun Lobster Tail Chicken Skewer - Front & Fish Cake and Sausage - Back Fried Milk

It was a long and tiring day with all the walking that was done. It didn’t help that it was still cold there. I was wearing 4 layers already and it was still cold! Maybe this is how I saw the weather since in the Philippines there are only two seasons - hot and hotter.

©️All pictures are mine and taken using an iPhone 7