Namsan and Seoul Tower

Alright, so last weekend we decided to be brave and walk up the street a little ways and hop on the subway and make our way to Namsan and Seoul Tower. It was exciting and a little nerve-wracking at the same time. The next to last stop it got really crowded. Thankfully, James was holding Ashley because we were so packed in there I could not move. When the doors opened to get off there were more people trying to get on. So we fought our way through trying to hold onto each other; I think I was holding on so tight that I may have left red marks on Ben’s hand. We got there and walked out in the wrong direction to where we needed to be going. This is where the adventure began. We walked and walked and then we climbed about 50 steps and then we walked some more and then decided that we would cross the road because that made more sense (at least it did at the time) and then we discovered there were about 100 more steps to climb. After we huffed and puffed and used the kids as excuses to stop we made it a flat spot where there was a park. The kids took off running off like with a newfound surge of energy.

As we were watching them play and catching our breath, I looked over and saw this thing that looked like an Elliptical (exercise machine) but it was not running on electricity run and was just located next to the park. I guess they thought we had not gotten enough exercise climbing all of those stairs. I know I am always at the park with the kids thinking “Hey, I could use some cardio”. The kids had fun and then we moved on. We walked around that area looking at some statues and then we looked across the road and saw there were even more stairs. At this point, the kids were not very happy. But then, we saw where the cable car was going up. Now I wasn’t too sure about this idea, but Ben was real excited about the prospect. So we waited in line, were stared at a lot, and ended up making friends with a Korean family in front of us. The mom had bought a bag of the Korean version of Bugles (remember those?) and was handing them to her kids and Ashley was a like a little hungry puppy staring at them, so one of the kids gave her one. Ashley took it and then looked at me. I said “go ahead”. Then my mommy instincts kicked in: I had just let my daughter take food from a stranger. I kept telling myself that I saw her buy the bag and open it up. We were then crammed into the cable car with about 30 other people. I mostly just kept my eyes closed on the ride up. However, I have to admit, it was an amazing view. At the top of the mountain, there was a sword demonstration going on that we watched and then we let the kids walk around. When we were ready to leave, we went down a shortcut that we saw on the way up, hailed a taxi and went back home.

Here's a view of the city from the top of the mountain -