Day 2: Namsan / N Seoul Tower (Night)
My uncle and 3rd aunt came over later that night and we all had dinner at home. I’m not a picky eater so just a bowl of rice and 1 반찬 (side dish) is fine with me. I can eat a bowl of rice and just 금 (sheets of kelp) or 두부 (tofu) with some 간장 (soy sauce) and be content. When I was little, one of my favourite dishes was water poured over rice with a small bowl of soy sauce with sesame seeds. I would have one spoon of watery rice and then dab the tip of my spoon in the soy sauce and eat it in the same mouthful. I don’t particularly like 찍개 (Korean style soups) either. I think Koreans usually have to have some kind of soup with their meals. On that night I ate rice, 깍두기 (pickled radish squares) and what was left over of the gangpungi the night before.
After finishing dinner, I told my relatives that I was going out to visit the Namsan Tower. My uncle thought that perhaps my aunts weren’t taking good care of me thus my wanting to leave and go somewhere at night but that so wasn’t the case. I told him that I simply wanted to check out Namsan Tower at night. When preparing for my trip, many of the beautiful pictures I saw of Seoul on the internet were at night under the stars. Therefore, I had intentions of visiting several places on my itinerary once during the day and then again at night. I’ve always referred to the Tower located on Namsan as the “Namsan Tower”. It looks like somewhere down the line however, the tower was sold and the name was official changed to “N Seoul Tower” but I don’t think anyone noticed as Koreans still refer to it as Namsan Tower.
When I left my aunt’s place, the sun was slowly setting but it was still light outside. I was going to get to the Namsan Tower via the Cable Car so I walked to Dongnimmun Station and took Line 3 to Chungmuro and then transferred to Line 4 and took that to Myeongdong Station, leaving at Exit 3. When I got out of the station, it was dark and I was surprised that night had fallen already while I was riding the subways. I walked South and read that if I took the road to the right of The Pacific Hotel, I would eventually get there. Sure enough after a short walk, I met The Pacific Hotel and kept to the right of it. It didn’t seem like that long of a walk on paper but when you don’t know where something is, it always feels longer than it really is. Plus, the walk is all uphill. I also didn’t see any signs confirming I was going in the right direction (there may have been signs but it was dark) but I just trusted the route and followed a couple walking ahead of me. Here is a map from the subway station to the cable car station:
View Namsan Cable Car Station in a larger map
I got to a very steep set of stairs and thought that this might be it so I ascended them and I was right. There weren’t any signs so if you see a steep set of stairs on the right, you’re probably just about there. At the top of the stairs was the Cable Car Station. The Cable Car Station itself is about 3 or 4 stories if I recall so you have to do some more stair climbing once you get there. I bought a round trip ticket which costs 7500WON and waited in line.
When I finally got on the cable car and we began to climb, I could see much of Seoul at night but for some reason I felt a little disappointed. Perhaps it was because moments like these were best shared with someone else? Perhaps it was because I was expecting more from the view or more lights emanating from Seoul? I’m not too sure. Since the Namsan Tower is located at the top of the mountain and in essence isolated from the city, as much as the cable car was providing me a view by going up, I felt it was also pulling me away from the view at the same time. I felt like the closer I got to the top, the less there seemed to be to see other than pitch black mountain side. That’s when I thought that perhaps it would have been better to take the cable car during the day so that I could at least take in the view of the mountain side. All was not lost though because I found entertainment in trying to catch bits and pieces of the conversations that people were having around me in the cable car with what Korean I know. Can you hear anything interesting?
When I got off the cable car, I thought I was done climbing but you actually have a bit more walking up a steep hill to do but then that’s it. Finally, the Namsan Tower in all it’s glory and colours too!!!
The colours constantly cycle from white and blue and…I can’t really remember the rest ^^. Even though the CN Tower is taller and in my hometown of Toronto, the Namsan Tower has more emotional significance (I’m not sure that’s the right word) for me but not because of anything I did there as this was my first time visiting. Yes, it’s again because of a Korean TV show, namely MBC’s We Got Married ^^. The Namsan Tower and the Locks of Love were featured in a couple of episodes involving the AlShin Couple (Alex and Shin Ae) and more recently the Khuntoria Couple (Nickhun and Victoria).
Right next to the Tower is a large Gazebo with benches for you to sit and rest. I first saw this gazebo on an episode of MBC’s Infinity Challenge where the mission was for all members on the show to get to Namsan Tower by their own means and methods. The gazebo is where they all met.
Also around the base of the tower are two areas for the Locks of Love. I don’t know how or when it started but basically couples come here to fasten a lock as a symbol of their unbreakable love and attach a message. Couples use to then throw their keys to the locks over the side and down the mountain but now there are signs forbidding it as it is bad for the environment. There are literally thousands of locks and messages of love and you could spend all day reading them.
It was really dark and the messages were hard to read which only reinforced my thought that as a tourist, visiting Namsan Tower would be so much better during the day. As a couple though, I think coming here at night would be more romantic. It already seemed like the majority of the people visiting that night were couples.
While I was looking at the Locks of Love, I thought about buying a lock and writing a message to my future wife (whoever that me be ^^) and adding it to the collection. I even thought of what I wanted to say but the more I thought, the more I realized that writing it out wasn't as important as always keeping that message close to my heart so I didn’t end up writing one. Besides, what I wanted to write was extremely cheesy…^^
Along the areas where the Locks of Love are located, you can actually get quite a clear and unobstructed view of Seoul without having the need to actually go up to the top of the Namsan Tower. Mind you, the view is kind of restricted towards one direction, that being southwards and towards the Hangang River. Here is the view overlooking Seoul from that area.
There are a few facilities located at the base of the tower. There’s a bar with ambient lighting, a restaurant that serves fast food like hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches and there is also a Teddy Bear Museum and store that seemed like it was a little out of place. There was a separate admission to go up the tower which was 8,000WON. I read some blogs where once people got to Namsan Tower, they didn’t bother going up but since I was here I thought I might as well see everything I could. I bought a ticket and it probably took about 10 minutes or so of waiting in line to finally get to the elevators.
The donut shaped observatory at the top goes all the way around allowing you to look out on to Seoul in all directions. According to the information on this glass pane from the observatory, “home” was only 10,607.77kms away!
The observatory is actually 2 floors with the lower floor containing the restaurants. Along the part of the inside of the observatory was a tiled wall which contained individual hand written notes from couples similar to the Locks of Love and others leaving messages about their visit to Namsan and Korea.
I actually didn’t spend much time up in the observatory as I felt the time I spent overlooking Seoul earlier from the base of the Tower was just as admirable and satisfied me just the same. When I got back down to the base of the tower, I went to the fast food restaurant I had seen earlier and wolfed down a hotdog and pop. I rode the cable car back down and headed home for the night.
After finishing dinner, I told my relatives that I was going out to visit the Namsan Tower. My uncle thought that perhaps my aunts weren’t taking good care of me thus my wanting to leave and go somewhere at night but that so wasn’t the case. I told him that I simply wanted to check out Namsan Tower at night. When preparing for my trip, many of the beautiful pictures I saw of Seoul on the internet were at night under the stars. Therefore, I had intentions of visiting several places on my itinerary once during the day and then again at night. I’ve always referred to the Tower located on Namsan as the “Namsan Tower”. It looks like somewhere down the line however, the tower was sold and the name was official changed to “N Seoul Tower” but I don’t think anyone noticed as Koreans still refer to it as Namsan Tower.
When I left my aunt’s place, the sun was slowly setting but it was still light outside. I was going to get to the Namsan Tower via the Cable Car so I walked to Dongnimmun Station and took Line 3 to Chungmuro and then transferred to Line 4 and took that to Myeongdong Station, leaving at Exit 3. When I got out of the station, it was dark and I was surprised that night had fallen already while I was riding the subways. I walked South and read that if I took the road to the right of The Pacific Hotel, I would eventually get there. Sure enough after a short walk, I met The Pacific Hotel and kept to the right of it. It didn’t seem like that long of a walk on paper but when you don’t know where something is, it always feels longer than it really is. Plus, the walk is all uphill. I also didn’t see any signs confirming I was going in the right direction (there may have been signs but it was dark) but I just trusted the route and followed a couple walking ahead of me. Here is a map from the subway station to the cable car station:
View Namsan Cable Car Station in a larger map
I got to a very steep set of stairs and thought that this might be it so I ascended them and I was right. There weren’t any signs so if you see a steep set of stairs on the right, you’re probably just about there. At the top of the stairs was the Cable Car Station. The Cable Car Station itself is about 3 or 4 stories if I recall so you have to do some more stair climbing once you get there. I bought a round trip ticket which costs 7500WON and waited in line.
When I finally got on the cable car and we began to climb, I could see much of Seoul at night but for some reason I felt a little disappointed. Perhaps it was because moments like these were best shared with someone else? Perhaps it was because I was expecting more from the view or more lights emanating from Seoul? I’m not too sure. Since the Namsan Tower is located at the top of the mountain and in essence isolated from the city, as much as the cable car was providing me a view by going up, I felt it was also pulling me away from the view at the same time. I felt like the closer I got to the top, the less there seemed to be to see other than pitch black mountain side. That’s when I thought that perhaps it would have been better to take the cable car during the day so that I could at least take in the view of the mountain side. All was not lost though because I found entertainment in trying to catch bits and pieces of the conversations that people were having around me in the cable car with what Korean I know. Can you hear anything interesting?
When I got off the cable car, I thought I was done climbing but you actually have a bit more walking up a steep hill to do but then that’s it. Finally, the Namsan Tower in all it’s glory and colours too!!!
Right next to the Tower is a large Gazebo with benches for you to sit and rest. I first saw this gazebo on an episode of MBC’s Infinity Challenge where the mission was for all members on the show to get to Namsan Tower by their own means and methods. The gazebo is where they all met.
Along the areas where the Locks of Love are located, you can actually get quite a clear and unobstructed view of Seoul without having the need to actually go up to the top of the Namsan Tower. Mind you, the view is kind of restricted towards one direction, that being southwards and towards the Hangang River. Here is the view overlooking Seoul from that area.
The donut shaped observatory at the top goes all the way around allowing you to look out on to Seoul in all directions. According to the information on this glass pane from the observatory, “home” was only 10,607.77kms away!
The observatory is actually 2 floors with the lower floor containing the restaurants. Along the part of the inside of the observatory was a tiled wall which contained individual hand written notes from couples similar to the Locks of Love and others leaving messages about their visit to Namsan and Korea.
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