Today the trip went to Namsan Tower: my very first trip alone in Seoul.
The subway was easy to take alone even though I had to change the line, I’ve become a subway pro and now I’ve even found a subway map (not that I really need it, just nice to have). I headed to Myeongdong station and walked up a hill to take the cable car up to Namsan Tower (I so did not have the patience, and will, to walk up the mountain for an hour in this hot weather).
A nice view offered itself from the inside of the short cable car ride to the top of Mt. Namsan.
Up a couple of stairs again and the Pavillion in front of the Namsan Tower came into sight. It is a beautiful place where old people really seem to enjoy the shade while eating a lunchbox or playing cards.
For a long time I just went around the grounds in front of the Namsan tower and enjoyed the place.
I headed down after having spent quite some time in front of the Tower and walked a couple of minutes to Myungdong, there again I just walked around window shopping and browsing. I didn’t buy anything, for some reason I feel that I might get more shopping done in Hongdae, but one thing is certain: I will have to come back to Myungdong before I leave Seoul so I can fill my luggage with Korean celebrity goodies (as these are sold quite cheap in Myungdong).
I took the metro again to DongDaeMun (yes, again) planning to get something to eat and go to the CheongGyeCheonNo stream to do my homework (that I was smart enough to bring with me). Arrived in DongDaeMun I ended up walking around for a long time before realising that I didn’t feel like eating at all, but that time having finished all of my water, so I just bought some more water and headed down to the stream.
Just as I had almost memorised all of my vocabulary and reached the last page that I had to study Unnie called me on my (new) Korean phone. She informed me that she had finally gotten out of her pajamas (at this point it was probably around 6pm already) and suggested that I join her and Lokty in Seoul Station so we could get some food shopping done. Fortunately for me they hadn’t left the Dormitory yet so I finished my studying and headed back to the metro to get to Seoul Station. We shopped the same place as last week.
By the time we got back to Ewha it was already 8pm and we headed to a restaurant to eat some food. We bought some seafood noodles, bibimbap and some mandu (dumplings). As we couldn’t finish all of it we got the remaining food wrapped up to go home so we now have lunch for tomorrow. This evening meal turned out to be my first meal of the day. The odd thing is that I wasn’t hungry before the meal nor after the meal, I reckon I drank so much water today that it weighed out my need for food. At least lack of money or time wasn’t the reason that I hadn’t gotten another meal.
We headed back to the dormitory shared the foods and then Kiki and me shared the remains of her Birthday cake.
Today I actually managed everything in a reasonable time so no late studying for me. It’s worse for Kiki: even though she stayed home today especially to study she only managed to study for half an hour, so she still has quite some studying to get around to tonight before she can go to bed. I’ll do my best to cheer her on and not laugh too loudly because of the drama I plan to watch before bed (falling asleep when she is studying the Korean alphabet is impossible anyways).
It must admit this one ‘lonely’ day in Seoul was actually quite nice, different from the other days and quite relaxing, I really feel like I have been here for a long time now. I now feel that I have seen the most important things in Seoul and the things that I most wanted to see. Now I’ll have to start my tour of South Korea, there are still so many things in this country that I want to see and experience.