Aside from shopping, we visited two of Seoul's more interesting places, Seoul Tower and the Korea War Museum. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of trying to visit both places in the same day, and in hindsight, it would have been better to see them on different days. Seoul Tower is a large tower on top of a mountain in Seoul. There are a couple ways to get up there, you can walk it, drive up, or take the cable cars to the top of the mountain. We decided it be fun to take the cable cars to the top of the mountain... and we were right. This came after a good 30 minute trek around the area to figure out how to get up to the cable cars, since our directions that came from the company themselves were wrong. You buy your tickets from this little area and then wait in line to get on the cable car. When we were going up, the car was completely packed, which was good because it prevented me from being able to see down (I know that if I could see the ground it would have made me sick.) Once we got to the top, we had to walk up these wooden steps, but it was worth it when we made it up there. From the mountaintop, you could see all of Seoul and it was really amazing. You could walk around the area up top and see the tower and (go inside if you wanted to pay to go to the top). Around there tower were some restaurants along with two displays. The first display was a bunch of locks and notes that were set up to look like a Christmas tree. The other area was also made of locks and notes, but this time they were shaped like hearts. We took pictures of the heart-shaped benches and the giant silver heart that was made up of different phrases about love.
Once we finished with Seoul Tower, we took the cars back down the mountain and set off for food. We got lost looking for On The Border, but we instead ate at another Mexican restaurant. Once we had gorged ourselves on food, we headed for the Korea War Memorial. I was picturing a memorial similar to those in Washington DC, but this was much more than that. This memorial had an outside area along with a full museum. The outside had a giant reflecting pool with fountains and in the far corner had a full-size ship and plane that had been used (unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see them because of the darkness). Amber and I went inside and realized that we could see the whole museum for free, and we decided to venture around the building. This museum covered more than just the Korean War, but pretty much covered all of Korean history. The very bottom floor had information from the early Korean civilizations, and slowly progressed as you made the rounds.
The museum had wooden boats, weapons, clothing, castles, art, and just about anything else you could imagine. Each section covered a different aspect of history, such as the Middle Ages, and then entering into modern time. It was really neat to see all the different clothing and guns, along with the uniforms from all the troops involved in any combat missions that Korea had been involved with. They even had areas where it was meant to transport you back in time and show you what a refuge village would have looked like. I had an amazing time there and it was probably one of the best parts of the entire trip. Amber enjoyed it also, though she would say that my "inner geek" was showing at times... I said that I wasn't a geek, but a history teacher who loved seeing all this history. I would definitely recommend for anyone to go and see the museum because it was well worth it.
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