Seoul Tower Lights

Sunday evening we made plans to walk up the mountain stairs of Namsan to enjoy the tower lit up at night.  We started our journey walking up the street from our house to Seoul Fortress Wall. 

There is a very steep walkway around the wall that leads up to a park with a couple of statues. Once you go through the flat park you go up more stairs until you find a parking lot. This will lead you to the stairs that go up to Seoul Tower.  The walk up is very steep and there are countless stairs to climb. With children, the walk took us about an hour to get to the tower. 

After arriving at our final destination we were drenched with sweat and needed a way to cool down. Water was handed out to drink and then James found something amazing. Right in front of Seoul Tower were kids of all ages running through water that was coming up out of the ground. The kids ran straight to the circle of mist and cooled down in no time. 

After the kids cooled themselves down, we sat down on a park bench and brought out our sandwiches we had packed for our picnic on the mountain. The kids really enjoyed having an excuse to have a picnic and I was just glad to be able to sit down. 

The tower was even more beautiful than I could have imagined it to be at night. Just seeing it right in front of me instead of my bedroom window really made me appreciate the beauty of it even more. It was a very lively place to be at night. There were lots of families and couples enjoying the many restaurants,shops, artists, and views. James bought us yummy Churros to enjoy as we looked over the brightly lit city of Seoul. 

It was such a romantic spot. I can see why so many couples were there to soak it all in. James and I both made sure to make a note of this. If we ever do get a babysitter while living here this would be the perfect place to go on a date night. When it was time to go we decided not to go back down the steps of the mountain but try a different route on the opposite side of where we came in. This is the walkway to the bus stop. When we arrived at the bus stop we stayed on the walkway and turned right. We found this led right to where we needed to be and was a much smoother way to get down. We even found a few Australians on the walk and enjoyed listening to the them talk to one another. (Every time we go on a trip somewhere we usually find an Australian or two. They are the happiest people on Earth, in my opinion.) Walking down this path, we were back down to the main road in no time.

4th of July

Yongsan had a wonderful Independence Day celebration on post. There were tons of bands playing, vendors set up everywhere, bouncy houses, a softball tournament, and lots more.  The MWR was having a scavenger hunt for people to get involved and really check out all the vendors that were there. We participated in the hunt and had a great time. The vendors all had free things to hand out which was a great bonus. We watched a 20 minute fireworks show that was by far the best I have ever seen. We had an amazing time yesterday and look forward to more MWR sponsored events on post.

Seoul Children's Grand Park

Seoul Children's Grand Park is a great place to take your children. The place is filled with tons of things to see and do. The park consists of a Park, Zoo, Amusement Park, Botanical Garden and a Children's Museum.The Park, Zoo, and Botanical Gardens are free. It will cost you to ride the rides at the Amusement park and the Children's Museum was 4000 won for adults and kids. Children under three get in free.

We went to visit the park on a Friday, mid-morning. The traffic was pretty intense on the way there. The traffic in the middle of the afternoon, when we left, was great and we got back to post in half the time it took us to get to the park.  I checked out a few different websites for directions and there are several different ways to get into the park. We just put in Seoul Children's Grand Park in our GPS and it led us right to it. (Other than a few missed turns because we are still getting use to the road system here.)

We pulled into the parking lot right in front of the museum. We discovered later that when going out the gate you have to pay for your parking then, not before. I guess it is based on the time you spend in the park. We were there for several hours and our parking fee was 4300 won.  We went straight for the zoo which opens at 10 o'clock,five hours after the park opens.The zoo has several buildings with different animals. We were really surprised at all the exhibits they had considering it was free. The park has a Peter Pan animal show that has several showings but we decided to skip that since we were really just interested in the zoo itself.  None of us would have understood a word anyone said anyways.

The park had different places to eat and picnic tables to bring your own lunch. Souvenir shops were at the zoo and around the park for you to buy an overpriced small stuffed animal. We knew that we were just spending money on gas to get there so we made sure to pack water and snacks. The kids were so glad to go somewhere new that they didn't even care about the souvenirs. We had a wonderful day in the park and found a great spot in Seoul for the kids.

Seoul Tower

After a long day of driving to Osan Air Force base we came home to rest. We didn't intend to do anything else but lay around for the rest of the evening. James tried to watch a movie but he just wasn't getting into it,I was pinning away on Pinterest,and the kids were screaming and fighting. I decided we needed to get out of the house.

There is a sign right by our house saying there is a park just up the hill. We searched for the park but couldn't find where the children's section was. So since we were at the foot of the mountain where Seoul Tower is located we decided to take our tower trip a day early. We chose to ride the cable car rather than walk the stairs up. The price for riding the car was 6000 won for Adults and 3500 won for kids.

After stepping out of the cable car you have several different places to eat to get a cold drink and anything on a stick. You had a choice between walking up steps or a ramp. We didn't want to seem like lazy Americans so we took the steps up to a beautiful open spot to look out over the city. This scenic spot was also very colorful. People can buy locks to put on the rails. Usually a couple will write a heartfelt message with their initials on the lock,attach it to the railing and give the key over to their sweetheart for safe keeping. They did have locks for sale but I am sure you can bring your own lock too.

We walked up more steps to a great big pavilion where couples of all ages were resting. To the left of the pavilion is a great big open space with lots of greenery. Seoul Tower is located here. Before you walk to the tower there is a place to the right where you can purchase tickets to go up to the deck to have a better look inside the tower. We had a perfect view from the lower decks and enjoyed looking at the view and all the colorful locks everywhere. On the way down we took the step path that had a couple nice views as well. We really enjoyed our time together today exploring Seoul Tower and we will make sure to bring a lock next time.