Well, the visit to the Soonchunhwang medical center today was a bit of a bust. I did get reacquainted with my old pal Dr. Yu who said I looked much better than the last time we met. Anyway, the whole medical well-being checkup was to be scheduled after my consultation with the good Dr. Yu. And that will occur next Friday. Endoscopy and everything. HooRay! Oh, I am wearing the blood pressure monitor which is recording my blood pressure every 30 minutes or so. I was 140/90 this morning, but I always run a little borderline high. So, we’ll see.
Anyway, since I had taken the whole day off work I decided to take a break from the treadmill and hike up Namsan (South Mountain) instead. Let’s check the pictures…
Yobo Jee Yuen came along for the sunshine and fresh air…
And how could she resist an offer from a handsome guy like this? Although she did laugh a little too long and a little too loud when she got a look at my hat and walking stick….what’s up with that?
Stuff like this in Korea never ceases to amaze me. Not so much that it is assumed passerby’s will put out any brush fires they may encounter, but that no one would consider stealing the shovels and rakes. Man, they wouldn’t last 24 hours left out like that in the USA.
This was either fresh spring water or the drain from the toilets…
Ah, the pause that refreshes…and yeah, it was clean water…
Ok, I’m not going to pretend that it is a difficult hike. It’s not at all. It’s like a stairway to heaven in fact…
Just call me the old stairmaster. 163 steps on this incline…
And at the top is this nice scenic overlook…
With views like this one…
So, our destination is Seoul Tower. We’re about half way there at this point…
The wimp’s way to the top. (which is my normal method, well that was the old me).
Old fortifications…
And chimneys for the smoke signals to warn of invaders. Which happened quite often in Korean history…
Objective achieved. Now we’re hungry…
Hmm, last time I was up here this was a family style Korean restaurant. Now it’s a hoity-toity Italian place.
But the view of Myeongdong is the same…
Quite a bit fancier on the inside than it used to be…
Jee Yuen’s hungry face…
We watched the cable cars while we waited (the restaurant is directly above the station).
Alas, this delicious seafood soup was just about gone before I remembered to use the camera (I told you Jee Yuen was hungry!) But you can see the shells and stuff off to the side. Mussels and prawns and other goodies.
This fried seafood dish was also quite tasty…
And the pizza was to die for…crust about as thick as a cracker…the way it should be!
So after gorging ourselves on that great food, we decided to ride the tram back down the mountain. Jee Yuen has tickets in hand, but the tram that was supposed to depart at 10 minute intervals was somewhat delayed. Suspiciously it seemed that the delay coincided with enough passengers showing up to fill the car….oh well, it was less than 30 minutes wait and that puts it within the range of “Korea time”.
Nice views on the ride down too…
And so ended my Namsan afternoon…
Lovely pictures of your hike…a beautiful place to live, such a large city. I agree about the pizza…ultra thin cracker crust is my fav.
By the way, I did most of my growing up in Colorado, but we did live here and there in the west. Washington, Idaho, and Utah…My dad was somewhat a nomad, and we went along for the ride 😉
Debra, Seoul really is a pretty amazing city. 13 million call it home which I still find hard to get my mind around…
Do you mind my asking how you found my blog?
This is not a negative comment, but in some of your pictures, you remind me of Hal Clinkenbeard. What size hat do you wear?
Big. I think I had one of Hal’s hats and it was too small…