Day 19: Seoul Forest
I awoke this morning with no solid plans as most of what was on my travels itineraries had been checked off by this time and what remained were a couple of museums and places outside of Seoul that I had already forgone. One I mentioned before was Palbong Bakery in Cheongju after hearing my aunt/niece’s unfavourable second hand opinions of the place. Another place that I was on the fence for much of the trip was Namiseom, the island Northeast of Seoul where some of the more famous scenes from the K-drama Winter Sonata were shot. There were several ways to get to Namiseom. The hard but more flexible way that allowed you to come and go as you pleased involved Subway > Train > Bus/Taxi > Ferry, which all seemed a little much for me. The easier way was taking the special shuttle bus from Insadong that departs at 9:30AM that went straight to the island and ferry. The problem with this option was that the returning bus to Seoul didn’t leave until 4PM meaning you had to spend the entire day on the island. I couldn’t envision myself wandering the small island all day by myself without getting a little bored so I decided it would be best to go some other time when I had some special company to go with.
Here’s a picture of some of the notes I made and carried with me always, stuffed in my Seoul City Guide book.
Once I’m done blogging about all my days, I think I will post my itineraries and list my top picks in each of the areas of Seoul in comparison to Lonely Planet’s Top Picks.
So getting back to what I decided to do today, I dug back into my Seoul City Guide book looking for a quiet and nature-y place to go for a slow stroll, kind of like the experience we had at Pyeonghwa Park on Day 15. My aunt also had a brochure of attractions in Seoul and off of that the place that seemed to suit our needs the most was this park called Seoul Forest. My book described it as a pleasant place, somewhere to enjoy the natural surroundings and see deer! As I believe Seoul Forest was recently rebuilt into the park/forest that is is today, it seemed like none of my aunts had gone before so it was going to be a new experience for all of us.
Today, I travelled with my mom and maknae aunt and before setting off for Seoul Forest we hit the convenience store to pick up some gangnengyi (강냉이) to eat at the park. Gangnengyi is like sweetned Korean popcorn. The sweet flavour is faint however (so not like caramel corn) and after munching on a bag for a while, you’ll probably not even notice the sweetness except for the slight stickiness that will be left on your fingers. I just so happen to be munching on some right now.^^
We headed out shortly after lunch by cab across Seoul towards the park and it was slow going at times due to the traffic. Before coming to Seoul, I really expected the worse as traffic was concerned because my childhood memories of Seoul comprised of cars, humidity and smog (and arcades with friendly arcade ahjumma’s that would give us free juice and gum). While there were certainly tons of cars on the road making the streets look forever busy, to my delight I found that it was usually constantly flowing with only a few instances that I can remember where it became stop and go. When we did get stopped in traffic, it really made me appreciate the Seoul Subway system that much more as being a speedy and cheap way to travel. My mom actually wanted to go Seoul Forest via the subway but because it was far and I knew riding the subways involved a lot of stair climbing, that idea was vetoed.
When we got to the entrance of the park, we picked up a brochure and discovered that Seoul Forest was comprised of 5 different parks which had something for everyone. While I wouldn’t categorize Seoul Forest in the same way I would categorize your typical wilderness forest, it had an abundance of trees all along the paths and perimeters and throughout the park which provided sufficient shelter from the sun and the city all around. As it turns out, I only ended up shooting videos at Seoul Forest so here’s a compilation of all my clips.
The main entrance to Seoul Forest is on the east side where the Culture & Art Park (Park 1) starts, which is the biggest of the 5 sub parks. The park is very family friendly as there are several playgrounds for the kids to play on and it showed with many of the patrons being families. There were also many couples taking a slow stroll like us on foot throughout the park. Exploring the park on bicycle also seemed to be a popular options as well with them. There’s a stream that runs through this park that opens up into a pond with fountains and a bridge crossing. Right when I was ready to snap some pics of the fountain in action, it shut off. :( While on the bridge watching the fishys swimming in the waters, there were these 2 girls taking pictures of each other striking poses as if they were modeling which gave me a chuckle. I was about 99.99999% sure that those pictures were ending up on their minihompys later that day. I was counting on there being some kind of concession stand because I needed to get my World Cone fix and found that in addition to there being a convenience store, there was also a Lotteria right in the middle of the park. It was all the more evidence that no matter where I went in Seoul, there was always (to my fortune) a Lotteria within walking distance. As we planted ourselves by the fountain and had our ice creams, in disbelief I spotted a couple of unattended empty bowls of jajangmyung on the ground. I couldn’t believe that someone actually ordered jajangmyun and had it delivered to the middle of the park! Actually, I could believe it. It’s Seoul afterall.^^ I always wondered, when does it not become worth it for the restaurant to come back and pick up their dishes when you consider the time and gas involved?
Further along into the park, there’s a path called “Forest Path” that is lined with really tall trees reminiscent of the scenes in Winter Sonata on Namiseom Island. Since I didn’t go to Namiseom, I got to have my Winter Sonata tree scene fix here…sort of. The path unfortunately is really short and it’s more like a short detour off the main path instead being a part of the main path. It was here where I first spotted a pole marked “Wifi”. “설마 (no way)…” I thought and had my doubts so I turned Wifi on on my phone and sure enough, I had internet! I found periodic poles all over which covered the entire park with free Wifi. I <3 Seoul! I temporarily got my internet fix before heading North. There’s a stable with horses and an equestrian riding/training area but it looked to be private and while it was located in the park, it wasn’t part of the park that you could explore. There was also a high school located next to that which I found strange.
We headed southwest towards Eco Forest which is Park 2 where the deer are. I can’t remember the last time I saw deer, probably as a child though when I visited the zoo with my most vivid deer memory being one where I witnessed it taking a crap. Seriously. It was nice to see that the deer were enclosed in a rather large area allowing them to roam and range freely. Some of the deer were off in the distance but some were near the fences, lazily lying around swatting at the flys around them. The deer were definitely a hit with the youngsters who came with their families. It felt like most of the time we spent at Seoul Forest was in Eco Forest but it wasn’t spent deer watching actually but people watching instead.^^ We planted ourselves at a bench not far from the deer enclosure and watched the people passing by while munching on our gangnengyi.
While my mom and aunt kept me entertained with their funny commentary (on just about all things), I pulled out my phone and surfed away to my hearts content catching up on all the things I missed online from the last 19 days. Just for fun, I decided to run a speed test to see how fast the Wifi was at the park…
I was blown away to see I was getting ~10MB/s down and ~6MB/s up which is crazy. If we had this in Toronto, I can just imagine hardcore downloaders who surpassed their monthly bandwidth cap coming to the parks with their laptops torrenting all day long.^^ Just to put it in perspective, I pay $50/month for 10MB/s down and 0.5MB/s up (with a cap of 60GB/month) for internet at home which was being bested by free internet in the middle of a park. Again, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised with Korea being the internet capital of the world and all. In addition to the Lotteria’s which were always a stone’s throw away, so too were the PC 방’s (internet café’s). On the rare occasion in Canada, I’d hear in the news about someone being found dead at a PC 방 in Korea after playing online games for days straight without sleeping or eating. Madness!
Seemingly out of nowhere, a cute baby deer came by following a man as if it was his mom. We were told the man had received the deer at birth thus leaving an imprinting effect on the deer.
The sun was starting to set and we reluctantly felt that it was time to leave so we headed back to the main entrance but not by the way we came but eastward through the Experiential Learning Park (Park 3). There were various flowers planted along the way leading towards 2 gardens. The first garden is housed indoors and is called Insect Garden and it’s like a 2-story greenhouse where you can find all kinds of tropical looking plants and exotic cacti. As the name suggests, there are also bug exhibits and even live large turtles for your viewing experience. Past that is the outdoor Gallery Garden where you will find beds of beautiful 국화 (Chrysanthemum) amongst some deer statues that would make a nice Kodak moment. I was approached by a couple who asked me to take their picture with their film style camera but I think I messed the shot as it didn’t feel like I took the picture when I pressed the shutter button…so sorry.^^
So all in all, it turned out to be a very enjoyable day at Seoul Forest. We didn’t get to visit the Hangang Riverside Park (Park 4) or The Marsh Plants Gardens (Park 5) but that was more by choice. The size of Seoul Forest makes exploring all 5 parks very doable, even more so if you plan to rent a bike and cycle your way around. In hindsight, it would have been nice if we had gone to the Hangang Riverside Park and taken the ferry to one of the other piers and then headed home. If we had done that though, we wouldn’t have gotten the entertaining taxi driver that we did.
The taxi driver was very friendly and somehow the conversation ended up on talents, singers and celebrities. Speaking from experience as a father who had a son trying to make it in the entertainment industry, he talked about how hard it was to survive and make a living as a rookie. As a rookie, because you have no experience and training, he said that you have to sign these one-sided contracts with management companies. where you hardly make any money in the end. Although he wouldn’t divulge his son’s name, he mentioned that before enlisting in the army, he use to be a regular on the variety show Star King. Even on the show, he mentioned because there’s a hierarchy and rank, his son either never got the chance to speak much or was under a lot of pressure as to what he could and could not say so as not to offend the elder’s on the show. Even though he didn’t want his son to get into the industry because it was hard, he supported his son because it was what he wanted to do. Once he’s done his army duties though, he said his son will most likely not go back due to the difficulties associated with making a career in the industry. When I watch Korean shows on TV featuring kids these days, it seems like all they want to do now is become idols when they grow up.
On the way home, the taxi driver took a slightly different route than what I was accustomed to when heading home by cab which always found me passing Gwanghwamun Square and the Admiral Yi Sun-shin Statue. This time, we cut across earlier passing in front of Seoul Plaza and went along the stone wall of Deoksugung Palace. I learned that there’s a myth or saying that if a couple walks along this alley down the stone wall of Deoksugung, their relationship will not last. I kind of wish I had known this earlier when I visited Deoksugung so that I could see how many couples tested their fates!
Here’s a picture of some of the notes I made and carried with me always, stuffed in my Seoul City Guide book.
So getting back to what I decided to do today, I dug back into my Seoul City Guide book looking for a quiet and nature-y place to go for a slow stroll, kind of like the experience we had at Pyeonghwa Park on Day 15. My aunt also had a brochure of attractions in Seoul and off of that the place that seemed to suit our needs the most was this park called Seoul Forest. My book described it as a pleasant place, somewhere to enjoy the natural surroundings and see deer! As I believe Seoul Forest was recently rebuilt into the park/forest that is is today, it seemed like none of my aunts had gone before so it was going to be a new experience for all of us.
Today, I travelled with my mom and maknae aunt and before setting off for Seoul Forest we hit the convenience store to pick up some gangnengyi (강냉이) to eat at the park. Gangnengyi is like sweetned Korean popcorn. The sweet flavour is faint however (so not like caramel corn) and after munching on a bag for a while, you’ll probably not even notice the sweetness except for the slight stickiness that will be left on your fingers. I just so happen to be munching on some right now.^^
When we got to the entrance of the park, we picked up a brochure and discovered that Seoul Forest was comprised of 5 different parks which had something for everyone. While I wouldn’t categorize Seoul Forest in the same way I would categorize your typical wilderness forest, it had an abundance of trees all along the paths and perimeters and throughout the park which provided sufficient shelter from the sun and the city all around. As it turns out, I only ended up shooting videos at Seoul Forest so here’s a compilation of all my clips.
The main entrance to Seoul Forest is on the east side where the Culture & Art Park (Park 1) starts, which is the biggest of the 5 sub parks. The park is very family friendly as there are several playgrounds for the kids to play on and it showed with many of the patrons being families. There were also many couples taking a slow stroll like us on foot throughout the park. Exploring the park on bicycle also seemed to be a popular options as well with them. There’s a stream that runs through this park that opens up into a pond with fountains and a bridge crossing. Right when I was ready to snap some pics of the fountain in action, it shut off. :( While on the bridge watching the fishys swimming in the waters, there were these 2 girls taking pictures of each other striking poses as if they were modeling which gave me a chuckle. I was about 99.99999% sure that those pictures were ending up on their minihompys later that day. I was counting on there being some kind of concession stand because I needed to get my World Cone fix and found that in addition to there being a convenience store, there was also a Lotteria right in the middle of the park. It was all the more evidence that no matter where I went in Seoul, there was always (to my fortune) a Lotteria within walking distance. As we planted ourselves by the fountain and had our ice creams, in disbelief I spotted a couple of unattended empty bowls of jajangmyung on the ground. I couldn’t believe that someone actually ordered jajangmyun and had it delivered to the middle of the park! Actually, I could believe it. It’s Seoul afterall.^^ I always wondered, when does it not become worth it for the restaurant to come back and pick up their dishes when you consider the time and gas involved?
Further along into the park, there’s a path called “Forest Path” that is lined with really tall trees reminiscent of the scenes in Winter Sonata on Namiseom Island. Since I didn’t go to Namiseom, I got to have my Winter Sonata tree scene fix here…sort of. The path unfortunately is really short and it’s more like a short detour off the main path instead being a part of the main path. It was here where I first spotted a pole marked “Wifi”. “설마 (no way)…” I thought and had my doubts so I turned Wifi on on my phone and sure enough, I had internet! I found periodic poles all over which covered the entire park with free Wifi. I <3 Seoul! I temporarily got my internet fix before heading North. There’s a stable with horses and an equestrian riding/training area but it looked to be private and while it was located in the park, it wasn’t part of the park that you could explore. There was also a high school located next to that which I found strange.
We headed southwest towards Eco Forest which is Park 2 where the deer are. I can’t remember the last time I saw deer, probably as a child though when I visited the zoo with my most vivid deer memory being one where I witnessed it taking a crap. Seriously. It was nice to see that the deer were enclosed in a rather large area allowing them to roam and range freely. Some of the deer were off in the distance but some were near the fences, lazily lying around swatting at the flys around them. The deer were definitely a hit with the youngsters who came with their families. It felt like most of the time we spent at Seoul Forest was in Eco Forest but it wasn’t spent deer watching actually but people watching instead.^^ We planted ourselves at a bench not far from the deer enclosure and watched the people passing by while munching on our gangnengyi.
While my mom and aunt kept me entertained with their funny commentary (on just about all things), I pulled out my phone and surfed away to my hearts content catching up on all the things I missed online from the last 19 days. Just for fun, I decided to run a speed test to see how fast the Wifi was at the park…
I was blown away to see I was getting ~10MB/s down and ~6MB/s up which is crazy. If we had this in Toronto, I can just imagine hardcore downloaders who surpassed their monthly bandwidth cap coming to the parks with their laptops torrenting all day long.^^ Just to put it in perspective, I pay $50/month for 10MB/s down and 0.5MB/s up (with a cap of 60GB/month) for internet at home which was being bested by free internet in the middle of a park. Again, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised with Korea being the internet capital of the world and all. In addition to the Lotteria’s which were always a stone’s throw away, so too were the PC 방’s (internet café’s). On the rare occasion in Canada, I’d hear in the news about someone being found dead at a PC 방 in Korea after playing online games for days straight without sleeping or eating. Madness!
Seemingly out of nowhere, a cute baby deer came by following a man as if it was his mom. We were told the man had received the deer at birth thus leaving an imprinting effect on the deer.
The sun was starting to set and we reluctantly felt that it was time to leave so we headed back to the main entrance but not by the way we came but eastward through the Experiential Learning Park (Park 3). There were various flowers planted along the way leading towards 2 gardens. The first garden is housed indoors and is called Insect Garden and it’s like a 2-story greenhouse where you can find all kinds of tropical looking plants and exotic cacti. As the name suggests, there are also bug exhibits and even live large turtles for your viewing experience. Past that is the outdoor Gallery Garden where you will find beds of beautiful 국화 (Chrysanthemum) amongst some deer statues that would make a nice Kodak moment. I was approached by a couple who asked me to take their picture with their film style camera but I think I messed the shot as it didn’t feel like I took the picture when I pressed the shutter button…so sorry.^^
So all in all, it turned out to be a very enjoyable day at Seoul Forest. We didn’t get to visit the Hangang Riverside Park (Park 4) or The Marsh Plants Gardens (Park 5) but that was more by choice. The size of Seoul Forest makes exploring all 5 parks very doable, even more so if you plan to rent a bike and cycle your way around. In hindsight, it would have been nice if we had gone to the Hangang Riverside Park and taken the ferry to one of the other piers and then headed home. If we had done that though, we wouldn’t have gotten the entertaining taxi driver that we did.
The taxi driver was very friendly and somehow the conversation ended up on talents, singers and celebrities. Speaking from experience as a father who had a son trying to make it in the entertainment industry, he talked about how hard it was to survive and make a living as a rookie. As a rookie, because you have no experience and training, he said that you have to sign these one-sided contracts with management companies. where you hardly make any money in the end. Although he wouldn’t divulge his son’s name, he mentioned that before enlisting in the army, he use to be a regular on the variety show Star King. Even on the show, he mentioned because there’s a hierarchy and rank, his son either never got the chance to speak much or was under a lot of pressure as to what he could and could not say so as not to offend the elder’s on the show. Even though he didn’t want his son to get into the industry because it was hard, he supported his son because it was what he wanted to do. Once he’s done his army duties though, he said his son will most likely not go back due to the difficulties associated with making a career in the industry. When I watch Korean shows on TV featuring kids these days, it seems like all they want to do now is become idols when they grow up.
On the way home, the taxi driver took a slightly different route than what I was accustomed to when heading home by cab which always found me passing Gwanghwamun Square and the Admiral Yi Sun-shin Statue. This time, we cut across earlier passing in front of Seoul Plaza and went along the stone wall of Deoksugung Palace. I learned that there’s a myth or saying that if a couple walks along this alley down the stone wall of Deoksugung, their relationship will not last. I kind of wish I had known this earlier when I visited Deoksugung so that I could see how many couples tested their fates!
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