South Korea: Namsan Park and N Seoul Tower

While asking the locals where's a nice place to go in Seoul, Namsan Park would inevitably be one of the places which would be brought up.

So one fine Saturday morning, a couple of friends and I decided to see what Namsan was all about. Looking at the map from our hotel in Insadong, Namsan seemed to be walk-able (meaning maybe a 30-minute walk from the hotel), turns out we were dead wrong.

Namsan Park is nearly an hour's walk from Insadong! But no worries for us troopers because the weather was actually quite nice at this time and the long walk was good exercise.

A little trivia: Namsan is literally translated to "South Mountain" because of its location in the southern part of Seoul.  It's a popular spot for hiking and recreation. A superb panoramic view of Seoul can be enjoyed at Namsan Park which speaks about one thing - Namsan Park is also a popular date place. :)

Getting to the top of Namsan Park can be done in two ways - hike or cable car. Given that we've already walked an hour to get to this place, the unanimous decision was to take the cable car. The cable car in Namsan Park is a misnomer, because it's more like a cable bus! People do not have individual seats in separate compartments, the cable car is more of a standing room bus where everyone is transported to the top of the mountain.

At the top of  Namsan Park is N Seoul Tower where one can see an even more sprawling view of Seoul. There is a rotating restaurant at the fourth observation deck, which has a really nice view of Seoul city night lights.

In the fence area near the edge of Namsan Park is a place called "Locks of Love". It started out in 2007 with a few padlocks and messages attached to the fences and has now blossomed into a full blown area with thousands of padlocks and love messages.

This is a place were lovers can write down promises of love and lock them as a sign of forever.

Like I said, date place.

There was a really long line at Cold Stone, so we decided why not join the bandwagon and see what the hype was all about.

Waiting in line was worth it  as we had these huge ice cream cones that were personally mixed as we ordered with fresh ingredients. Mel and I say hello with our 5,000 KRW ice cream cones! :)

As with most tourist places that I've been to in Korea, there's a showcase of Korean history. There was show displayed Korean soldiers in battle.

Excellent swordsmanship.

It may have been a long walk to Namsan, but the the place was well worth it. To people planning to go here, would suggest to head to the place at around late afternoon to night time, this would be the best time to visit.