Obligatory Korean Tourist Spot #1: N Seoul Tower

I mentioned a while back that a college friend of mine, Aaron, came to visit in July. Now, nearly two months later, I have pictures from his visit here. Probably the most notable thing we did (besides eat) was visit the N Seoul Tower.

The road up towards Namsan park and the cable car up the mountain winds past an animation museum of some kind. Naturally, we had to stop and take silly pictures:






The N Seoul Tower is a huge tourist attraction for couples. As people have mentioned before, all along the cyclone fencing (to keep you from falling off the edge of the deck into the relative wilderness below) are locks that people stick there as testaments to their love for one another. You can even buy locks right at the tower.


Stole this from Alex, since I was too lazy to take a picture of the locks myself.

The "ground level" deck was home to a few eateries (some fast food, one a more sit-down, candlelit affair), the gift shop, and basically places to mill and lounge around. The benches are designed to be weirdo snuggly intimate affairs with bends in the middle, making them vaguely V-shaped.

We shelled out about W20,000 to take the elevator up to the observation room, a huge 360* with big windows looking out in every direction. The compass points were conveniently labeled, and by each point was the name of a few major international cities and how far away they were in that direction. I should note that looking west you could see how many kilometers it was to Washington, D.C. and New York City, but not Philadelphia. Alas, city of brotherly love, you'll always be that forgotten middle child.

You could also pay some ridiculous price and get a pseudo-Tarot reading (didn't look like a proper Tarot deck, from what I could see) about love and relationships. N Seoul Tower is really marketed as a couples-y romantic getaway, remember. I'm not sure if it was originally designed to be a romantic date thing to do, or if Koreans started that on their own accord and then the owners of the tower just decided to run with it.


I guess giant futuristic phallic landmarks are pretty romantic....

It also has some kind of modern art laser light show that goes on periodically. I didn't really get it, but then I don't really get modern art in general.


Pretty sure this has to do with the light show.

At some point, I will probably go back to get a better look at Namsan park (Seoul really hurts for greenery, Namsan park is a blessing) and also to leave a lock on the wall for me and Aspie_Dev. I'm a big softie at the end of the day. =P