Miguel was up late doing work online on day 6, so our day 7 in Korea started lazy. It was a restful morning for all. We were pretty tired from all the exploration of Korea anyway it was nice to go slow for a while.
I did take the boys to the hotel playground. They love the playground in the hotel. There are lots of different ways to climb and jump and play. The most funny thing about the playground is that one of the rules is no running allowed! HA! A playground for children and no running allowed! Now that rule is hilarious and doesn’t seemed to be enforced by anyone.
We then headed out to explore some more. Seoul Tower was where we headed. We took a taxi to get most of the way there. Then there was a steep climb of about 200-400 yards to get the rest of the way there. A great way to work off a fancy dinner at the tour, climb up and walk back down. In the area where the taxi driver dropped us off there were many visitors to include cyclists, walkers/hikers, and couples.
Near the tower there was suspended wire people sculptures. We saw that there was teddy bear museum also. We did not choose to go there but it looked cute. The teddy bears on the Seoul Tower Plaza were adorable. We could not help but get pictures with the big cute teddy bears.
On the fences around the tower there were lots of locks on the fences with notes on them. Apparently placing the locks is something young couples do for good luck. There was a sign saying something about keeping your keys to your locks. Very curious!
There was a young couple blowing bubbles in the plaza. They ended up involving Alex and Carlos in the bubbles. The boys really enjoyed chasing the bubbles. This couple paid a lot of attention to our boys. They are now part of the fan club, complete with a photo-op. Well the couple took pictures of the boys anyway.
Going up in the tower is done by elevator. Directly inside the tower building is ultramodern and snazzy-looking area. Inside elevator looks like night sky above and below you. This ambience was neat, especially for the boys. In the observation floor we could walk in a complete circle to see north, south, east, and west. Throughout the circle there were labels for direction/distance to cities. Anchorage, Alaska was listed. The boys were happy about that. My husband and I thought it was neat too. The boys and I also discovered there were mirrors on the ceiling. We enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves from the below the mirrors. The view of city from the tower was magnificent. The sunset was beautiful.
Later when we were back outside, Alex’s made another new little Korean admirer. It was a cute little Korea toddler girl. The mom kept trying to not have her toddler bother Alex. The toddler was persistent, but the mother won in the end.
We bought popcorn. I spilled the most! GRACIOUS ME! Alex cleaned it up patiently at first. Then I spilled again. Alex ran out of patience. It was funny. Then I stopped spilling or maybe I just stopped eating the popcorn. I do not remember. We did not let popcorn get in the way of our fun and family bonding though.
Once the sunset was close to gone there was an “Electronic Fire” laser / light / sound display. Everyone gathered around to watch this. It looked and sounded cool. Carlos and Alejandro danced and played around near the lights and to the music. The young couple from before spotted Carlos dancing from across the plaza and his fan club (the young couple) cheered him on and joined in the fun. It was cute.
Instead of walking down the hill in the dark we took the tram. It was nice seeing the night cityscape come alive as we went down in the tram. The boys always love trams. It reminds them of snowboarding. They like to pretend to snowboard. We still have not been able to take them snowboarding, sadly. Once we tried and the weather was too cold so the facility was closed. Then anther time we had all the equipment rented but my husband injured himself before we left for the slopes. Maybe some day the boys will be able to go snowboarding. Some places in Japan offer indoor snowboarding. Maybe we can find one of those.
All in all the Seoul Tower experience would be a really good date night for a young couple in love.
INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: Now here is something astonishing to us. Since when are there so many Russians in Korea (my husband noticed that there seem to be a few here and there just about wherever we went). It was strange!