Friday, Day 14: Namsan Park

Enough of hanging out at home. Today we walked to Namsan, the mountain surrounded by city topped with the tower tourists call Seoul Tower. It is not that far from one of the gates, although as usual in Korea, it is all up hill.

View of our goal from the parking lot where we started.

We turned left outside the gate and continued along a busy Seoul street for 10-15 minutes.

I almost didn't include this, but then I figured those other than Uncle Bob and Aunt Peg who have never been to Korea, might not know what a "busy Seoul street" looks like--except it wasn't very busy at this particular moment.

Eventually, we turned along side the old city wall. At one point on top I found a sign that said the wall was from the Joesan Period. Not very helpful to a foreigner. It also said the wall was built in 1996. That didn't sound very historic to me. When I looked up Joesan Period at home it said 14th -19th centuries. I suspect the 1996 part was restored.

The way got pretty steep. We rested a couple times and were passed by very-physically fit Koreans, some of them ten years older than I am. At one point as we sat on the curb, these guys came along and just started pushing. Little to no English, but we laughed and made gestures and they pushed Simeon the rest of the way to the top.  The only negative was that we were too proud to suggest another rest! They took pictures and we thanked them in Korean.

Great views of the city in every direction from the top. We didn't have one of the ubiquitous selfie-sticks, so we asked someone to take ours in exchange for taking theirs.

Locks enscribed with lover's names drape the overlooks. Simeon was fascinated.

Koreans are great at landscaping. Unfortunately, they aren't so great at picking up their trash. Just to the left of the picture is an empty water bottle and wadded up napkin. Behind me is an empty chip bag. Hard to reconcile with their other great traits.

The views from the base were so great that we didn't feel a need to actually go up the tower.