Tonight I made my long-awaited trip to Namsam Tower (The N Seoul Tower, officially the CJ Seoul Tower and commonly known as the Namsan Tower and Seoul Tower, is a communication and observation tower located on Namsan Mountain in central Seoul, South Korea)! It's a famous place with shops, food, and a breathtaking view of Seoul. Because of this, my friends advised me to go at night. I asked Dajeong how to get there because my teacher had told me it was difficult to navigate to. Thank you Dajeong for helping me out so much!! I couldn't have done it without you. I kind of panicked when she mentioned I had to take a bus at some point, because I had heard that when foreign in Seoul, you should never take the buses unless you know exactly what you are doing. Dude, I JUST conquered the subway (which is cake compared to how complicated, confusing, and unstructured the bus system is)- there is no way I am capable of taking on the buses O.O
First things first though! I've never ventured around on the subways after dark; I usually just walk if I'm going somewhere at night. I have now reached the conclusion that this is the time when I should be riding it. No wonder I get stared at when I ride the subways all the time during the day. It is flooded with tons of kids my age now! With their cool haircuts and hair colors and bright clothes :D I feel so much more normal lol, and more comfortable than I usually do on the subways. Usually the majority is old people or men in business suits. I'm fascinated all over again by the subway crowds haha, I love the fashions and different styles of what's acceptable here and what's not compared to back home. That being said the crowds themselves are also IMMENSE. Because now they've added the entire 25 and under crowd of Seoul to the usual mix of grandmas, grandpas, business people, and mothers. I came down my first escalator into the Orange line subway and my eyes like popped lol. You can't even see the floor anywhere, it's just a sea of people for ageeeeeees. Rush hour indeed.
In my 30 minutes of discomfort however I found some amusement watching the heads of everyone around me. It's pretty funny when the subway lurches to a start again after each stop and everyone simultaneously lurches and all the heads wave together back & forth like a batch of seaweed. Yea yea, I'm going loony in here okay cut me some slack haha.
Right: cool patterns in the floodlights that lit the path up to the Tower. Even their public lighting is cute!
Bottom left: a pagoda atop some stairs where visitors can sit and relax!