Final day in Seoul

This will be my final blog entry for this trip.  Tomorrow morning we'll be heading for the airport to begin the long journey home.  

We planned a low impact day today, initially intending just to go down to the river and take a river cruise for an hour or 2 and that was it.  Becky booked us an Uber to get us to the river bus terminal, but it's not directly accessible by car, so she booked it to take us to the Lotte World Mall, thinking this was nearby.   We were dropped off at Lotte World, which is a theme park!  I knew there was a theme park in Seoul, but I didn't expect it to be in the middle of  a built up area of the city. 

Right next to the theme park was a mall, that seemed to rival COEX mall for size.  Then, in the middle of all this was the Lotte World Tower,  at 1821 ft this is the world's 6th tallest building.  I'd honestly no idea that there was a building this tall in Korea. It is the tallest building I've ever seen.  I declined going up it though. The cable car trip to Namsan Korea Tower the other day was enough heights for me for one holiday. 

We walked from Lotte World to the ferry terminal, which was further than we thought, so we stopped at seating areas along the way. 

At one point I got a fairly good view of the 1988 Olympic stadium 

We got on the river bus at Jamsil ferry terminal and enjoyed a pleasant journey of just under an hour, before getting off at Yeuoido.

In Yeuoido we had a very nice late lunch/early dinner at the Fairmont hotel, as a treat  on our last day in town.  We're now back at the hotel trying to fit everything in our suitcases, ready for tomorrow morning.

Seoul City Bus

After a lot of walking yesterday, we decided on a less hectic day today.  We started with an early morning stroll near the hotel to admire the statues at Gwanghwamun square and then visited the Cheonggyecheon stream.

When we got back to the hotel we had a  breakfast of Japanese pancakes in the hotel brunch restaurant. These were nicer than the ones we tried in Barcelona last year.

To avoid walking so much today, we took the hop on hop off city bus around Seoul and hopped off at 3 places. Our first stop was at Namsan Park and Botanical Garden, where we had a very pleasant walk.  An interesting thing about Korean parks is that they provide areas with free exercise equipment. This explains why I've yet to see any adverts about gym membership here.

Next we stopped at another of the 5 Royal Palaces. This one was quieter than the one we went to yesterday, so we were able to enjoy walking around the gardens.

After this, we went to lunch. All around Korea we've been seeing places advertising fried chicken and beer,  so we decided to give it a go. The Korean beer I had wasn't bad.

Our final stop of the day was in Insadong, where we did more shopping and Becky bought me my birthday present.   Then it was back to the hotel for some ice-cream and an early night.  

Full Day Tour of Seoul

We haven't done a lot in the last 2 days because of the heat and Becky being under the weather.  But we made up for it today with a full day tour of the city where we saw so much.

We started with a trip to a Buddhist temple.  Very pretty, with lots of lanterns. You can actually stay overnight in this place and learn to meditate.  It was full of inflatable decorations, but instead of them being Halloween or Christmas themed, they were all Buddhas or elephants or lotus flowers.

Next we went to one of the 5 Royal palaces in Seoul and learned about Koreas history. The palace we visited was the largest palace and had a ceremony for the changing of the guard.  Two of the girls in our tour group hired Hanboks (traditional Korean dresses). If you're wearing a Hanbok then entry to the Royal palaces is free, so lots of people dress up.

Then we went to the N Korea Tower. The trip up the mountain to the tower is by cable car. Needless to say I don't have any photos of that as I kept my eyes closed the whole way.  The tower is 236 metres tall. Combined with the hill it sits on, you get a view 480 metres (1574ft) above sea level.

We were dropped off at a street food market for lunch, but with Becky still being careful about what she eats and me not being adventurous enough to try weird stuff like blood sausage or baby octopuses still wriggling on a stick, we ended up in a Starbucks having a cheese, ham and egg melt. Even that was a bit weird as the bread was very sweet. It felt like having a toastie made with 2 slices of madeira cake.

Then it was off to Insadong, one of the premier shopping districts of Seoul, where some of the group, including us, went to a teahouse and performed the tea ceremony.

Our final stop of the day was Buchon village, an area with old style housing, before everyone started living in condos.

By the time we were dropped back at our hotel we were knackered,  but nobody could say we hadn't seen a lot of Seoul.

The COEX Mall and the Starfield Library

Today we took an Uber over to the Gangnam district to visit the COEX Mall. This place was HUGE!  It must rival West Edmonton Mall in size.  As well as the mall, there was an exhibition centre where there was a show of K Cosmetics going on, cinemas and even an aquarium.  At the centre of the mall is the Starfield Library.  The shelves are several storeys high - I have no idea how they get the books down off them.

Becky is still a bit under the weather, so after walking around the mall for a few hours we took a taxi back to the hotel and ate an early dinner before having another early night.  

There are so many huge screens on all the buildings here that I have to shut the curtains really tight because there's so much light coming in, even in the middle of the night.  The view from our hotel room reminds me of that scene from Blade Runner with all the buildings with screens on them.

Arriving in Seoul

Yesterday was a sea day, which gave Becky and me time to do our packing, wash our hair and have a nice 3 course meal at the fancy restaurant.

We hugged goodbye with the 2 couples we've been doing the trivia with and had an early night.

We took the walk off the ship option the following morning and used a private car service to transfer from the cruise port terminal at Incheon to our hotel in downtown Seoul. The traffic in Seoul is crazy and the journey took 2 hours.  We were still too early to check in, so we left our luggage at reception and decided to walk to a palace just down the street.

Unfortunately,  there was a note on the gates saying this palace is closed until 2nd June. so we walked on to a shopping area where there was a Lottemart hypermarket. 

The place was huge and it took us ages to walk around. At this point Becky's illness caught up with her again and it took us a while to get back to the hotel as we kept having to stop at coffee shops to rest.  

On the subject of coffee shops I've seen 3 Tim Hortons here so far!

Once we made it back to the hotel and checked in, Becky went to bed for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was our last day in Japan. We have 2 stops in Korea before the end of the cruise. Today we are docked in Busan, Korea's 2nd largest city at 3.2 million people and also the 6th largest port in the world.

Our tour took us to Gamcheong Culture village.  Our guide said we'd see how people in Busan used to live and I thought we'd see old buildings and people making rice flour by hand along the lines of St Fagans or Upper Canada Village.  However, the place we went looked perfectly modern and all the guide really meant was that the people here didn't live in the high rise condos that dominate the skyline.

About 60 to 70 percent of Korea is mountains, so with little space to build almost all the buildings are high rise condos. As you can see from the views.  

Back onboard, Becky and I were invited to a Sail Away party on the Helipad.