Happy Weekending!

So, husband and I went adventuring this last weekend!! This was the Valentine's day oriented... present type deal! Hahah. 

We went up to Seoul on Friday morning. And my husband even let me sleep in a little bit because I did not get much sleep the night before, EVEN THOUGH he wanted to leave at the butt crack of dawn to head up to Seoul. Meh, we left at about 12:30p. 

Anyway, the trip up to Seoul is always an interesting one. We have been there more than once, but like I said... Always interesting. 

1. Bus to AK Plaza in Pyeongtaek* (about 10-20 mins). This in itself is pretty intense because with every Korean bus driver there are different dangers (not so dangerous, just... scary, really. I am pretty sure they know what they're doing... I think). They drive like ... terrible terrible TERRIBLE drivers, swirving all over the road... they have absolute right-of-way, don't ever pull out or walk in front of a Korean bus. 
2. At AK Plaza, a mall, is the Metro (like a light rail, or MAX, or Subway) and train station (they have fast bullet-like trains, KTX, and the slower trains which are called long words... and do not have KTX attached to the name).
1. Many things here are confusing, for one, the entrance to the mall is up escalators (as it is with most malls here), everything is in Korean... And you have to decide WHICH (either the train ticket dispensers, or the metro ticket dispensers) ticket dispensers are which! 
3. Once you finally fiddle with the ticket dispensers and get your ticket to your destination, you have to figure out which platform you need to be on! I guarantee that you will feel like you are going the wrong way... But everything feels like that in Korea. 
4. Now, get on the train and be sure to listen to the stop names (Luckily they are announced in both Korean and English!). If you don't listen, then you could end up some place where you don't know, or passed your destination!
5. Now, if you're going to Seoul, then you can get off the train at either Yungsan Station or Seoul Station, once you're there you can either figure out how to get closer to your final destination with the Metro, or use a taxi! 

 Anyway... We got our hotel room at the Dragon Hill Lodge which is on the Yungsan Army Post. And got settled and called a cab to get to the Seoul Tower. It was about a 10 minute ride and about 8,000 Won (under $8). 

Once the driver dropped us off, we had to walk up a huge hill!! Man, I then realized that I am just out of shape. This hill was intense! I wish that we would have taken the cable car, but we really knew nothing about it then (so if you're going, I really recommend looking into where the cable car starts...). 

Once at the top, you buy a ticket at the ticket booth to the right. We didn't go, but there is a teddy bear museum, and a couple of other things to do while you're at the Seoul Tower. Pretty neat! They have quite a few awesome gift shops! Now that I think about it, I really wish I would have went to the teddy bear museum... Haha! Oh well. You can get a cheesy picture taken, while they tell you to say "kimchi!", go up to the observatory, which is really high up, it's glass windows and you can walk around the whole thing. Really neat. I didn't get any pictures up there, only because they wouldn't have turned out because it was dark outside, the reflection of everything would have really messed it up.

It's a really great site to see, though, it was SUPER cold up there! So I would recommend going when winter is OVER. Also, I would have really liked to go in the daytime, but, the city lights were really beautiful to see too.

Be sure to click on the photos to view larger if you like!

Seoul Tower, Seoul, South Korea
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On the bottom of the entrance to the Seoul Tower they had a deck with a great view. The fences of the deck were covered in key locks. It was so neat! I am not sure what it meant, or why people did it... But I think it said something about love or something.

More locks, most all of them were put on in twos.

The view from the deck. To the left.

View from the deck, Seoul, South Korea.

If you get stationed in South Korea or ever visit South Korea, I think it is a great site to see. Seoul is beautiful from this high up! But I would definitely go during day and night. Maybe for the sunset! There are restaurants there and everything!

Stay tuned for the next post about my visit to the DMZ!

-Adrienne

*Pyeongtaek is the closest 'big' city to us at Humphreys, it may be different for you if you are located at a different base! :)