I'm On Top of the World!

Well hey there, world! How are you today? Fine? Good! I am too! In fact, I'm going to tell you just how very fine I am.

This past Saturday was pretty great. Sarah and I continued our tradition of exploring Seoul by heading over to Seoul Tower (also known as Namsan Tower), which is on the top of a mountain in the middle of Seoul. It's the highest point in the city, and from its top you can see the entire city. Or rather, you can see a lot of the city until it all fades into the horizon. You don't realize how enormous Seoul is until you're up there and realize that it's all city in every direction as far as you can see.

The Han River cutting right through the city.

Also amazing is the geography of Seoul. The entire city is surrounded by mountains, making it incredibly easy to defend. They even use that to their advantage today, as the presidential residence, The Blue House, is also up against a mountain.

Check out those sweet mountains!

We spent most of our time in the tower admiring the view and trying to see if we could find Gangnam. We could. It was the place with the highest and coolest buildings. I'd like to believe that I have embraced the Gangnam Style. These days I dress quite classy and dance even cheesier. Just ask the poor people who have to watch me dance whenever Gangnam Style plays (which is more often than I'm comfortable admitting).

But I digress. In addition to climbing the tower, we also hung around the mountain to get some culture. There's a belief that if you go to the top of Namsan Mountain with your significant other and attach a lock to something up there, your love with be forever unbroken. And so, there are locks everywhere.

That used to be a fence.

I think it's kind of cheesy, but Koreans seem to love couple-related things. Anniversaries are a huge deal here, and you'll often see couples who go so far as to dress in matching outfits when they go out together. The truly committed couple can purchase matching shirts, shoes, socks, backpacks, and even underwear. And when looking the same as your beloved isn't enough, there's always locking your love into place on top of a mountain.

On the less romantic side, and way more awesome side, we also saw traditional music and weapons demonstrations. The coolest thing about the music was that the performers had ribbons on top of their hats. While playing their instruments, they would dance in such a way that would cause the ribbons to move around in patterns. It was really quite impressive to watch.

Now imagine those ribbons twirling around and around!

After the music, the guys with weapons came out and showed us why Korea is awesome and you should not attack it. On display were a variety of spears, swords, and spears with sword blades. They proceeded to first, chop up pieces of bamboo in rapid succession. Then, when that wasn't enough, they decided to attack each other with sharp weapons and pretend to die. It was both gruesome and beautiful. It was the most patriotic thing I have ever seen.

Behold the glorious dead!

Our day's sightseeing over, we decided to slowly make our way to dinner in Myeongdong via a few coffee shops and a refreshing walk. Seoul life really agrees with the way I operate, as food and coffee seem to be top priorities everywhere.