Wednesday 25th May, 2011
We got up early and headed to McDonald's for breakfast. I haven't had macca's in ages, so I got a bacon and egg 'set' with a hash brown and can of orange juice.
Today we were going to do the Seoul City Tourist Bus. It would let us visit the highlights of Seoul, especially on such a limited schedule we had.
We had to catch the subway to Gwanghwamun Station (Subway Line 5). It didn't take us long to reach our destination, but I must warn you the subways in Seoul are big and there's abit of walking involved. I do like the underground shopping centres though.
We soon arrived at Gwanghwamun Station and managed to find the tickets sales box on the main street. It is just opposite the police station. We made it just in time to board the first bus for the day, so on we hopped and thought we would we stop at the National Museum first. It was the only thing open at 9am, so it would be a good time to see it due to the minimal crowds.
The National Museum is big, very spacious and modern. It is free entry, unless of course you want to see some of the specialised exhibitions, which we missed out on. An hour or so later, we went to wait at the bus stop. The Tourist Bus comes around every 30 minutes and our next stop would be the War Memorial. I really enjoyed it here. They had life size planes, tanks and a ship. The museum itself was massive and outside they were setting up for a concert. There were plenty of groups of school children on excursion and tourists about. I recommend coming here as it has alot of history and can see the army vehicles up close- you can even go inside some of them.
From there, we headed to a Traditional Korean House called Namsangol Hanok Village. Again, this place was big and was full of people. I have noticed that in Seoul. There are people everywhere. The Traditional Korean House had a lovely garden and we saw a class of Taekwondo students showoff their martial art skills. We got a brochure and foreigners can also learn Taekwondo from that same class. That would definately be an experience.
It was now lunch time, so we went to a nearby cafe called Holly's cafe and had something to eat. From there we would go to our last destination-The Palace at Changgyeongung. The Palace itself is quite beautiful. It is home to a lovely, central pond that is home to a variety of birds and carp fish. There is also a green house that has little Bonsai trees. It feels like you are in the middle of an enchanted forest.
Going to the palace was a good way of finishing our bus tour. They're are many other destination the bus takes you too and there's also a different route, but we saw what we wanted to see, so we didn't think we needed to do the second tour. There is also a night city tour, which I think would be cool, as you would be surrounded by the city lights of Seoul.
The day turned out to be a hot one, so I think we were all happy to be going home and relax. Emma was a little restless and wasn't feeling the best. She was very hot and feeling uncomfortable, so we didn't do much in the evening. While Tiger stayed home with her, I went to Insadong markets to do some last minute shopping as tomorrow we would be heading home.
Seoul City Tourist Bus remains copyright of the author Two Otters, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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