Look At Me, I'm A Tourist!!

On Sunday Tracy and I finally decided to do the touristy stuff we said we were going to do all weekend. Leave it to us to do it the very last day of the long weekend. We asked Carolina to join us because she is the newbie and we figured since we were heading into Seoul to be tourists for the day she should join us. Tracy and I met up with Carolina at Bupyeong station and we got on the train bound for Seoul together. We started to get a little worried about our exact destination and, so we resorted to the subway map we had. Lucky for us this lovely older Korean man sitting next to Tracy heard us talking and helped us figure out where to go and assured us we were on the right train, phew! It took us about an hour or so to get to our first destination Dongnimmun. Our first stop was the Seodaemun Prison where the Japanese held the Koreans captive during war.

This is the outside view of the main prison where the cells were.

This is me inside the main prison where the Koreans prison cells were.

The prison was hard to walk through knowing the history behind it, but it was definitely an experience.

This is just a really pretty view from the prison grounds, so I took a picture.

We walked through the main exhibition hall and we were shocked when we got to the bottom floor. The whole floor has exhibits with Koreans being tortured by the Japanese. I have definitely seen worse when I visited Dachau concentration camp in Germany, but nothing can prepare you for human torture.

This is me inside a torture box where they would keep prisoners. The prisoners wouldn't be able to move inside it, so they would become paralyzed and end up eventually dying of starvation.

The worst part was that there were sound effects in this one exhibit with women being tortured. It was the most awful screams I have ever heard. Also, there were a lot of young kids visiting the prison, so it was kind of interesting to see their reactions, but we also wondered why their parents would bring them. Once we finished at the prison we headed to Seoul station to go to Namsan tower. Tracy had brought her Seoul tour guide book with her, so we followed the directions they gave in the book, but once we got out of the station they didn’t tell us where we needed to catch the bus that would take us to the tower. We tried asking some Korean man, but he was useless, telling us there was no bus. Then we decided to wait at this bus stop by the train station exit, but after about 15 minutes we realized there was no yellow bus, which we needed to take to the tower, coming, so we decided to walk down this one road and sure enough Tracy read the front of this yellow bus parked at it said Namsan tower. She tried talking/ playing charades with the driver and it turned out to be an awkward situation, but he took us to the tower, so that was a relief.

Tracy and Carolina happy that we finally found the damn bus.

When we got to the tower we decided to take the cable car up it, which was a really great experience. Besides the fact that they pack you into the cars like a bunch of sardines and I hate heights it was a pretty great ride.

This is the infamous Namsan Tower in Seoul, South Korea.

Once the car dropped you off there were about a hundred or so stairs we had to climb before reaching the tower.

This is a view of Seoul from the cable car as it was taking us up the mountain to Namsan Tower.

When we finally conquered the stairs we bought our tickets to go to the top of the tower.

They had some of the world's tallest towers on the wall, so opted for a photo with the CN Tower in Toronto only because it's in Canada.

Again, they packed us into the elevator like a bunch of sardines. Nothing beats a sweaty overheated elevator ride to the top of a tower.

I took this self-portrait of Carolina, Tracy and I while we were being smooshed in the elevator. I'm honestly surprised it turned out so well :)

At the top of the tower you can view Seoul; they have gift shops, a restaurant, cafes, etc. It was really awesome to look out and see just how big Seoul really is.

Here is a few of part of Seoul from the top of Namsan Tower. You can see just how big of a city Seoul really is.

The tower didn’t take us more than an hour to view it in its entirety. After we had finished with the tower we decided we had done and seen enough for a day, so we headed back to Incheon, but not before we got on a different yellow bus that goes to Seoul station and we got lost on it. I noticed we had gone to far, so I said we needed to get off the bus and I didn’t think we were as far away from Seoul station as we actually were. I told the girls it would be about a 10 minute walk, well the walk was fine until it started pouring rain, we had no umbrellas and the walk was way more than 10 minutes. When we had finally had enough getting lost and being wet we opted for a cab that literally drove us 10 minutes more to the station from where we were. Then we decided taking the bus home would be far more comfortable after the day we had, so we all got on the 1400 bound for Incheon. When the bus stopped in Sinchon Tracy and I got off to take the 1300 because it stops right in Yeonsu-gu. The bus ride was just over an hour, but it was comfortable and we didn’t have to transfer. When we had finally made it back to Yeonsu Tracy and I went and ate some galbi at our usual galbi restaurant and then we called it a night.