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I went with this boy I met, who is in the Air Force, stationed an hour outside Seoul. His mother has a timeshare with Marriott, and gets massive amounts of hotel points, so we were able to stay at the five-star Seoul Renaissance Hotel for free. That was cool. The hotel is very much like a western style hotel, except I think the rooms are smaller than you would expect for such an expensive place.
The hotel was actually fairly a point of interest on the trip, because of the subtle differences. For example, we weren't sure if, it being a western style hotel, the maids expected a tip. We tried leaving one the first night, but she didn't take it, so I guess not. And the fitness center provides workout suitswith the hotel logo on them for everyone who goes there. Haha.
The pool was a strange experience, too, sort of. It was pretty shallow. It was 1.3m at the shallow end, and 1.5m at the deep end, which allows me to stand flat footed, and still keep my nose above water. The pool was also filled to the brim, as with competition pools. There was no hot tub. There was a sauna, but you have to pay for it. Because of the gender segregated sauna, and possibly also for other cultural reasons, men and women have to enter the pool area through separate entrances. Guests have to sign in to the pool and/or sauna, and they get a key that goes to two lockers in a locker room. The first is for shoes, which you have to take off right away in the sign-in lobby, and the second locker is for clothing and personal items.
Once outside the hotel, I found Seoul to be quite large. We were in the southeastern part of the city, and just to get to the center of Seoul takes about 45 minutes of subway rides from there. There are so many cars and taxis that even the surface streets are four and five lanes wide (on each side). There are also many, many tiny streets, one or two lanes wide, with lots of businesses all along them, and people thronging through, walking in the middle of the road. And lots of skyscrapers.
We went to Seoul Tower, which is nothing but a tourist attraction. We took the subway to Seoul Station, which is near the tower, had Pizza Hut for lunch (the lemonade was carbonated), and then ended up wandering around for over an hour, trying to find the path that went up to the tower, which is on a big hill. When we eventually got on a bus and took it to the main entrance, I was so tired, I was surprised I was able to make it up to the tower. It took like a half hour to climb up the windy road. At the top, we got some ice cream. There is a big courtyard, where a jazz band was playing, and people were sitting and walking around. There is also a "Teddy Bear Museum," which is actually a teddy bear gift shop. Not sure what the connection is. Plus food stands abound.
This is me about a half hour before we finally found the trail up there. See how far away it is? The little guy I'm holding is Flat Stanley. Pictures with Flat Stanley are for a project I'm helping my young 4th cousin back in Indiana with.
The top of Seoul tower is the proper observation deck. The windows all name large cities and how far away they are from the tower, and each city is on the window that faces in its direction. There's nothing to do at the top floor except look. There are coin-operated binoculars, but I didn't bother to use them.
This is me looking like me from the observation deck.
The second floor from the top has a gift shop, a cafe, and the bathrooms, which they actually talk about in the brochure as being wicked awesome. The bathrooms have the same windows as in the observation deck, so you can still see the city from there. I'm told that the men's room has clear urinals against the window, so you can pee into the city. Very funny. The sinks are translucent blue bowls. Pretty cool, I guess. I wasn't allowed to put toilet paper in the toilet, though. It had to go in the trash can in the stall. The bathroom didn't smell like pee, though, so I guess I don't mind doing that.
The third floor down has a restaurant, which we didn't go to , because it was like three in the afternoon. You can get a ticket with a dinner option to eat there. Below the restaurant is just an elevator shaft, basically. At the bottom, inside, are a cafe, some video projections, a lot of chairs, and I think a couple arcade games. For the kiddies.
We took a tram down the mountain afterward, which would have been really cool, except they pretended the tram was a phone booth and we were all drunk college students.
