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.