South Korea and I: Seoul

From Busan we travelled to Seoul with the fastest train in South Korea, the KTX. It took us just a few hours to reach Seoul. The seats were very comfortable and we could put our suitcases into a luggage rack. It was a bit hard to get the tickets, because the man at the counter didn't really understand us and our special needs with big luggage. But just keep talking and they finally get somebody, who you can communicate with ^_~

On our way we also came through Daejeon. It's the city I am living in right now. What I saw wasn't really that good. Run-down houses, but definitely a big city. But I will talk about Daejeon in the following posts.

So we arrived in Seoul. It was pretty easy to find our hostel. They have a good description on how to access the hostel on their homepage. Compared to the hostel in Busan, this one was luxury. We had our own clean bathroom, a clean bed with linen on it, a heated floor, television, a refrigerator and enough space to open more than one suitcase. NICE (*＾▽＾)／

We visited the following sites in Seoul:

Gwanghwamun Plaza 광화문광장
Gwanghwamun Plaza is over 40 meters broad and over 550 meters long. It begins at the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and ends at the main gate of Gyeongbokgung palace. The street once had 16 lanes, but they were reduced to 10 in order to create the Plaza. The Plaza is open to the public an also shows a statue of King Sejong. You might be wondering who I'm talking about. I'm not familiar with Korean history. I did some research for you.
King Sejong: He is called Sejong the Great and was king from 1418 to 1450. What's so great about him? For one thing, he was the one who introduced the Korean alphabet Hangul in Korea and helped actively to create a simple alphabet, which everybody could use in the country. Up till then only Chinese Kanji were used for writing and not everybody could read them. He was also interested in science. What I remember from the small museum under the Plaza is, that he always thought of the people living in his country. The museum itself is a bit propagandistic in my eyes, but Koreans are very proud of their country. There's more information about King Sejong in the Wikipedia entry.
Admiral Sun-sin: He was a naval commander and is famous for his victory over Japanese warships. A story they tell in a 4D-cinema in the museum is about the Battle of Myeongnyang. His fleet was outnumbered 333 ships to 13 against the Japanese but he won anyway.

Cheongwadae 청와댸
This is the Blue House, where the president of Korea lives. We took some pictures. But there were a lot of police and you are only allowed to take pictures, while standing on a certain spot. Of course we didn't see it and were scolded by police, while they shoved us away.

Cheonggyecheon River
You can take a nice walk along the river. It was reinstated in 2003. While we were there a lot of Korean people went for a (power) walk during their lunch break. 22 bridges can be found along the river. But parking is allowed on the bridges. They were full with motorbikes. This took some of their beauty away.

N Seoul Tower 서울타워
N Seoul Tower allows you to see Seoul from above. But I think you can imagine, that because of the smog you won't be able to see a lot of it. Around the Tower is a famous Lovers' Sanctuary, which was a setting for some Korean TV dramas. You can either walk up the hill or take the cable car.

Hongdae
Hongdae is a district of Seoul. You can find the Hongik University there, a very famous art and design university. In Hongdae are a lot of young people, interesting shops and good restaurants. Our guesthouse was here. It's a very convenient are for travelling. You have easy access to the subway and the express train to Incheon Airport. The most funny thing you will find in Hongdae is the Trickeye Museum. We took some really hilarious photos Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

Gangnam
Since Psy everybody knows Seoul's district Gangnam. We went there to see the Korean World Trade Center and the Coex building. Underneath Coex you will find the Coex Mall. It's a big underground shopping center, that contains a cinema and an aquarium and a small Kimchi Museum. Now we know all about Kimchi ^_~