Namsan: After Dark

After several days of suffering through the lingering grit of the Hwang-sa (the Yellow Dust storm from the Gobi Desert), we finally awoke to a desperately needed rainstorm. The rain helped cleanse the air of all the dust and pollution. Amazing!!! We welcomed the rain with open arms! This photo of Seoul Tower was snapped through the rain. Even with the condensation it was much easier to make out the tower than the photo from the other day that I snapped through the choking Yellow Dust.
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School's back in session for rnrB so that means our days are mostly spent indoors. Feeling rather cooped up, we desperately needed to get out for some exercise the past two evenings--so we decided to climb Namsan (Mt Nam) in Seoul after dinner; a trek that runs about 3-1/2 miles from our apartment to the summit and back. Uphill almost all the way up these steps that are created out of misshapen bricks, pavers, stones, you name it!!! OSHA would have a field day in this country as every couple of steps there seem to be major 'sidewalk' hazards for the unobservant types.

Along the way, we stumbled upon a stamp making shop. With all the recent discussion about custom made letterbox stamps on Dartmoor this would seem like a letterboxer's dream! The round red stamps are often used as signature stamps for Koreans (& other Asian cultures, too). This shop offered not only these custom signature stamps but a myriad assortment of other types of stamps, too. Wonder what they'd do if I provided them an image to make for a letterbox stamp? ;)

Saw a lovely blooming cherry tree on the way up the mountain.

I checked on my Chrysanthemum Letterbox along the way and it's alive and well.

Only one visitor to date--but I'm related to him so I doubt it counts. ;)

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Seoul Tower (now named 'N Seoul Tower'--I assume the N refers to Namsan?) recently underwent a multi-million dollar renovation. We'd visited it on previous trips out here but we really wanted to see what the renovation accomplished. From a distance, we could see its incredible multi-colored light display each evening. What we couldn't see from afar was an incredibly 'ritzy' revamping of everything around, within and on the tower itself--from the rainbow assortment of fiber optic 'pot' lights in the decking on the way into the entrance of the tower all the way down to the incredible bathrooms! The new tower rocks! They seem to have followed this Art Deco approach to the souvenirs though--which would have been awesome had they applied it appropriately but almost all of the souvenirs in their shop failed to include pictures or at least images of the tower. How bizarre?

Here we are atop the tower. Seattle's only 8,331.88km away!

What was startling to actually see in print was that they posted the mileage for Pyongyang. Not only did we find surprising that it was annotated on the tower but that it was only a mere 193.60km away. Odd--that's closer than Portland, Oregon is from where we live in Washington! We know it's close but it doesn't really hit you until you actually see it in print!

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The bathrooms in the tower were amazing!

Here's the luminescent glass sink in the women's restroom.

The bright cylindrical tables to the right rear of the sink are mirror-stands. Those tiny two-sided cosmetic mirrors with magnification mirrors on the flip-sides.

And it doesn't just stop at the sinks--

here's the 'john' in the men's room!

(By the way, Trekkie snapped this shot--no sneaking into the men's room was involved with rnrB & me)

It even offers a spectacular view of the city lights!

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Once again at the base of the tower we came across some interesting sights, too. One of the most interesting items was this 'light show' of sorts.
Here's rnrB standing beneath a 'light' shower--it's essentially a shower faucet that sprays various colored lights on people standing beneath it. There are three dials on the faucet's pole that allows you to vary the intensity of the lights in the primary color spectrum. It's an interesting feature but we're not quite sure 'why?' it's there... Of course it costs 50Won to try it out so profit is probably the underlying them here...

It says something about creating an artistic feeling for participants.

So, that's how we've spent the past couple of evenings in Seoul.

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270 degrees of Seoul City Lights!!!

--snapped from a photo island high atop Namsan--

Contrary to what many folks say about Seoul's vibe as a city, we find that it is vibrant, cultural and full of life. It seems to be a city that awakens at night. Yes, it's dirty, quirky and has its negative points but show me a large metropolis that doesn't! Here we feel quite safe. Sort of ironic knowing that we sit about 30 miles from one of the most weapons hardened borders between two countries on the Earth and that we're well within artillery range of thousands and thousands of guns. Children are allowed to run free and unaccompanied on the streets and sidewalks. Young children, even kindergartners, take the subway to school--alone! It is not uncommon to see this. The Korean culture seems to incorporate this 'societal' approach to raising children. Everybody seems to look out for the children. It's interesting and a vast contrast to our experiences in big American cities. Rarely do we see any children on playgrounds in the US much less would we ever see a child, alone, on public transportation. The contrast between the 2 countries is striking. Yet, at the same time the two cultures share much in common. Small world, eh?

And we cap off the evening with a REAL KOREAN LETTERBOX! ;)