On my final day in Seoul, I sort of hit the skids. There was a lot that I wanted to see, but unfortunately, being a Monday, most museums and palaces were closed. So I aimed for the tackiest of tourist attractions: The Space Needle – or whatever the Koreans call it. It is positioned at the dead geographic center of Seoul and is definitely geared towards young romantic couples. There were expensive restaurant packages you could purchase for use on special floors at the top and a juvenile elevator ride with special space effects video to watch on the ceiling. Plus the usual pictures take. On arrival at the top as a momento of the occasion (for $ of course). The view was quite extensive, although it was a bit hazy again. Seoul is a very big city of ~12,000,000 people, so it is quite amazing to see sprawled out everywhere with mountains on the fringes and a river running through the middle.
The ride to the top and bottom included a cable car that plopped you down afterwards at the bottom in an interesting neighbourhood of pedestrian shopping alleys that seemed to extend indefinitely around the city, full of little shops, restaurants, and food stalls. Maybe all of Seoul is like that. It is very nice. The variety and number of eating places is quite amazing. And there is no shortage of cafes to give Starbucks here plenty of competition.
Now at the airport awaiting my flight to San Francisco, I have been very impressed with Korea and would like to come back to check out more. Very nice people, great food of every kind, excellent slick public transportation network, world’s best airport for eight years running (or so they are claiming – it is very nice) including a great express train into the center of town, and super-fast wifi everywhere you go (sometimes free, like everywhere here in the airport or at cafes, restaurants, museums, and hotels, or sometimes cheap at about $3 a day for access throughout the city including the entire subway and train system). There also appears to be quite a bit of mountain biking, hiking, and probably paddling around outside of the city, as well as road biking throughout the city.
Only downside has been the weather, which is comparable to the northeastern U.S. for this time of year: a bit colder and darker than I’m used to coming from sunny Australia.
