Seoul Tower...up, up and away!

After our power breakfast, we decided to work off the calories by heading up to Seoul Tower in the Namdaemun area of Seoul.

While waiting for a taxi, we noticed the following setup about 20 meters away from the "L-Mart". They had setup balloons and karoake to attract shoppers.


Check out this novel marketing campaign. Taping flyers to the ground leading to the front entrance of the store. Ingenius (notice the arrow at end pointing to L-Mart)!


Seoul Tower from the street level...soon to be at the top.


Conquering Seoul Tower is like walking up a mountain. We decided to take the gondola up and walk down. Here is a picture of the tower from inside the gondola (we got lucky and entered the gondola first; my six foot, two inch frame not only was blocking the entire view up to Seoul Tower, but I also was able to take the best pictures. hee hee).





A shot of the city below:


Once we got off the gondola we still had to hike up 200 meters to the base of Seoul Tower. I counted...too many of these. Enough to make my entire body drenched in sweat, especially my thighs, making my shorts stick to them. Very nice indeed.


Here is the Smoke-signal Station Site on Namsan:




Pretty neat stuff...


Here are some locals and tourists relaxing:


Here we are celebrating our accomplishment...reaching the top (well, technically hiking up some steps, the gondola ride did all the hard work, but I'm sure you won't tell anyone). If you're curious, this picture was taken with a mini-tripod I had with me (I'm always prepared). I set the countdown timer to 10 seconds and to take 5 shots in a row. At least one of them had to turn out!


Here is a class of Korean kids enjoying the tower:


Notice these cute "soccer balls" that had grass growing out of them:


How about a shot of the tower itself?


The city below, through the eyes of a fence:


Seoul Tower compared to other free standing structures (Go CN Tower!!). This is a picture of a postcard (I took the picture inside the gift shop):


Cue Seoul Tower propaganda:




Phew...that was a long post. But nevertheless, enjoyable, yes?