Day 1 in Seoul

Well, we are finally acclimating to the time change here in Korea.  When we arrived on Friday it was early morning - 5:30 am.  It took us till after 9:00 to finally get to our hotel.  We were able to check in and get our things settled.  We layed down for a short rest but knew that if we wanted to allow our bodies to adjust, we needed to stay awake.  Before we had left - I registered us for a free tour at 2:00 - that way I knew we would be forced to get out that first afternoon!

We ventured out on the Subway - called the Metro - to find something to eat before the tour.  We ended up in this small restaurant that had the menu written on the wall in Korean.  We were about to walk out when the hostess pulled out a menu that had a description of what each of the meals were in English.  YES!  We were able to order by pointing to our choices.  We were starving and it tasted delicious - even though I can't tell you what I had. :)  When i wanted some more water, I decided I was going to try out my new Korean language skills.  When I asked for water the waitress chuckled and shook her head.  However, I did get more water - but it may have been because I was pointing to the cup.

We then met our tour guide outside Namsan Park at the base Namsan Mountain.  They had some beautiful gardens and the ancient Fortress walls that go up the mountain.  We hiked up a bit as our guide told us about the history.   here are some pics:

We then went to the top of Mt. Namsan to see the Soul Tower.  Because it was such a rainy overcast day we didn't spend the money to go up in the tower.  It is the highest point in Seoul - and on a clear day the view is suppose to be amazing.  However, even from the base of the tower with the weather - we still had some gret views.

That first picture is a fence that surrounds Seoul Tower.  People lock a padlock onto the fence to represent that their love will last forever.  It was pretty amazing  - their were thousands!!!  Seoul is an amazing mix of ancient, traditional and modern.

We then went to Namsangol Hanok Village.  It is a place where they have moved 5 of the traditional Korean Houses to a park like setting and diferent activities take place to show traditional Korean heritage.  However, because the weather was so poor - not much was happening.  The houses themselves were neat though.

After the tour - we headed back to the Metro to go back to our hotel.  We were exhausted to say the least.  However, Jon looked at the map incorrectly and we got off at the wrong station, one too early, and walked and waked and walked looking for our hotel.  Finally after getting directions from a few different people on the street through broken Korean and English - we made it back to our hotel.  I barely made it into the room before I collapsed on the bed in a deep sleep at 7:00pm.