South Korea/China: National Museum, N Seoul Tower
Exploring Seoul on our own, we tried the Seoul Citypass tourist bus around the city. It loops around Seoul, and hits a few places that the subway doesn't cover: plus it's valid on the subway, so it's very useful.
We browsed the Seoul Museum of Art as it was near our hotel. It's mostly modern art, which wasn't bad, but not the best use of time. We should have headed to the National Museum of Korea and skipped the Seoul Museum of Art entirely, because the three hours we had at the National Museum wasn't nearly enough. It covered almost every major aspect of Korean history, from ancient people to the first city-states into the history of cartography and Korean culture. A replica of the most ancient stone pagoda in Korea sits at one end of the hall, a simple yet delicious (to us) food court waaaaay at the other end. It's worth a much longer visit than we were able to give it.
Back onto the Seoul Citypass tour bus to the N Seoul Tower. The tower is just a tower, but its location on one of the tallest vantage points in Seoul and its additional height makes the views well worth it. We didn't even go up the tower itself due to time constraints-- the view from the lower viewing decks was still great. A note of warning, the hike up the hill from the parking lot is a bit steep. At least it's a short walk.
We continued to loop around the city on the tourist bus, then ended up back downtown, where we had Korean ramen for dinner (mmmm!) down the street from a Red Mango (also yum!). Red Mango was a bit sweeter, with fewer fresh fruits available than here in Los Angeles, but tasty all the same. (and massive overheated inside...) We then did the night tourist bus of Seoul, which wasn't quite as neat as we were hoping. It dropped us off downtown by City Hall again, and we walked down the Cheonggyecheon stream for a few blocks before going to bed. The waterfalls, the little pedestrian crossings, the artwork under one of the bridges crossing Cheonggyecheon stream were very well done-- and with the Cheonggyecheon stream buried below street level, you'd never know unless you walked it.
