The sculptured garden of the hotel where the temple now sits...
Just to rub it in that it is spring over here...
I was glad that we got so much done on day 3, that left us room to take a more leisurely approach to our last day. We slept in a bit, and then headed to the post office to send some letters and postcards we had written. I am hoping some of them will appear in Canada Shortly, especially Mom's Birthday present... and then we looked at our list, only things left were the heaven temple, and Seoul tower.
We headed first to the heaven temple, having discovered the day before it was rediculously close to our hotel...
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A view of City hall from the heaven temple, with now rests on an elevated plateau above the city street level. |
| The heavens temple, where once offerings were made to heaven. | |
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Another ornate and interesting rooftop |
| More of those interesting fireeaters... I couldn't tell ya why, but I just thought these statues were the coolest... |
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The sculptured garden of the hotel where the temple now sits... Just to rub it in that it is spring over here... |
After we headed out from the temple, we went into the hotel and changed some cash over and then headed towards Seoul tower. To get there we took a path through the popular and active shopping district, Myong Dong.
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| These pictures fail to show the true bustle of Myong Dong, but trust me, it is a happend place where all manner of brand name fashion can be bought. D got himself a new Detroit Tigers shirt. | |
Finally we left Myong Dong (after stopping for a McRib or Ribwhich as I called it after the Krustyburger model...) and headed towards seoul tower. There is a cable car that goes up to mountain to the base of the tower, but beleive you me, it is still a hell of a climb just to get to the cable car station. I am sure it is no big deal for you long lanky fellows that are all leg like Matt or D, but for me, my itty bitty hooves have a heck of a time.. I made it though, as I always do, and my head was in a Neuschwanstein state of sweatiness upon arrival. We bought tickets and headed for the top. Seoul tower is Seoul's answer to the CN tower. It is 14th overall. Guess who's #1?
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Seoul Tower. Yeah, it's pretty tall. I guess. |
| Inside they have these little signs on your distance to other places in the world. I think these numbers are ballpark right, but I seem to recall Montreal being more than 49km from Toronto... |  |
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Of course we visit the tower on the only foggy day of our trip... |
| Foggy foggy foggy. |  |
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That doesn't stop D mind you. |
| We werent sure what kind of food they were selling here, but for some reason weren't inclined to try it... |
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After being done at the seoul Tower I suggested we head to the Coex plaza, A huge Mega Mall on the other side of the city. I swear, I have never been to such a huge place. We walked through that mall (which contains several floors, a exhibition center, multiplex, and aquarium, amongst other things) forever enjoying the sites and all the pretty girls walking hand in hand. We stopped for luch, a philly cheesesteak, and then having decided that the aquarium was not worth the admission moved on. D got it in his head to head for the only casino in town. His brother Joe works at one, and appartly his dad is a big fan so off we went. We made it there in good time, and headed into the walker hill casion, contained in the basement of the five star walker hill hotel. D decides to play some Blackjack, just for like 40 bucks and then quit. Fine, I decide to walk around a bit. The temptation is too much and I eventually buy in to a roulette table for 20 bucks. The minimum bet is 2.50. I figure, I have never actually played real roulette, what better place to learn the ettiquette. I drop a few chips on the table, I take the 2nd pack and nuber 8 in a postage stamp. Red 7. Fortuantely that is in the same stamp as black 8 so I triple my money. I play a few more spins, dont hit antything big, and walk away 5 mins later having doubled my money. D lost all his hands straight.
Some confusion around cabs and directions cost us an hour and an extra couple cab fares leaving the Casino, and D and I decided to split up. He really wanted a shirt he saw back in Myong Dong, and I didn't want to spend the extra 2 hours and such following him to get it... I headed back to the hotel. We met up there a few hours later, and then headed out to our final dinner at our favorite resturant...
And that was that... our flight left early and we had to stop at Burger King before we left. D needed a croissandwich, and so we had to be out of the room at 8. We made it an ealy night and bid farewell to South Korea.
The trip to the airport was easy and quick, though driving there is insane, I have never had such a bumpy bus ride... When we landed a few hours later in Japan we lined up for customs in the Japanese nationals area, not the visitors area, as we are residents and that's where we go.
The woman behind D actually tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the tourist line telling him to go over there.
We spent a wicked 4 days in Seoul, a great city with character and lots to see, surrounded by friendly people that speak great english. It takes about 2:40 seconds upon returning to Japan to be branded a forigner and pointed at to go over there with all the forigners... no attempt was even made to tell us in Japanese since no forigner could ever learn to speak it... ah... home again...
I miss Seoul. If I need a quick vacation, I will definately go back...