Seoul, Korea Day 1

Greetings all,

I decided to create a quick blog of my travels to keep you all updated. The posts will be brief and I apologize in advance for poor grammar as jet-lag makes me very disoriented.

Without further ado, welcome to the 2010 Summer postings of Val the Traveling Fox. :D

Today is the end of Sunday, July 25th 2010, Day 1 of Seoul, Korea (technically Day 2 but yesterday was 12 hours worth of plane travel plus delays :p).

I am staying at the Seoul Olympic Parktel, right below the Han river. The Parktel is a hotel that was created for the 1988 Olympics. It is part of a now huge sports complex and park. The park is not only home to the olympic monuments but also a fine arts museum and expansive sculpture garden. There are actually quite a lot of interesting sculptures all over the city that are very interesting to look at. The Hotel has 18 floors and a buffet on the top floor. I love how the perimeter of the hotel has a sidewalk that contains a texture much like an track with some bounce to it so that runners and joggers are more comfortable.

Here is a view of the hotel. It towers over the park but not over the expansive apartment complex across the street.

The view from the room. It was very foggy on the first day. There is an expansive park right in the middle of the city. Think central park in manhattan; an oasis of nature.

Another view of the skyline from the hotel.

A view of the World Peace Gate in the Olympic Park. There is a lineup of flags on the other side and a eternal flame of peace at the center.

A custom Keith Haring car. The museum inside the Olympic Park had a Keith Haring exhibition and to commemorate it they had limited edition vehicles.

A view of the city from the Olympic Park. The part of the city that I am staying in is super clean and really nice.

A sculpture with neon lights all over it. I think is Flav-a-Flav in the future.

A street view of an intersection with the elevated subway.

An indoor amusement park. LOTTE WORLD is kind of like a knock- off of Disneyworld, but indoors. The mascots are two Raccoons that look like Minnie and Mickey mouse. Full of noisy children. LOTTE WORLD is not just an amusement park but also a HUGE department store full of expensive designer clothing, a huge market and basically a huge mall.

Lotte World even had its own Toys r Us with wicked cool cash registers.


The mall even had Phantom of the Opera. I was shocked when I was in the food court to hear the musical, and then I saw posters advertising it. Wicked cool!

It may be blurry but can you all see that? Yep, its a Starcraft tournament aired on television. There are ads for Starcraft 2 everywhere!

Even Korea has Pochi Sweat. Liquids were much needed on this trip. Its soooooo humid. The cicadas were so loud you couldn't hear the traffic over them, now that is hot.

At the end of the day we decided to try and venture out to the downtown area on the Subway. It was no easy task navigating but we managed to get there and back. The subway cars were so nice and roomy and air conditioned.... and clean. I almost thought this city was spotless until we landed downtown. Then it started to smell more like a city. :P Either way I had a lot of fun so far. :D

Hope to show you all more soon,

~Val~