Okay, I'll be truthful. I wasn't all that excited about the first part of today's itinerary. N Seoul Tower, it read. I haven't been let down by my schedule so far, but I've lived around a big tower in San Antonio for four years and I'm about to move nearby another one in Seattle. They don't usually have that much to offer. You go up, you look at stuff, you come back down.
Because of that, the N Seoul Tower was an unexpected surprise. We took a cable car up 860 feet to the top of Mt. Namsan, a peak in central Seoul offering a panoramic view of the city. From there it was a few hundred more feet up to the observation deck, where you can truly appreciate how enormous Seoul is. Twenty million people were sprawled before us, buildings reaching literally as far as you can see, curling around the Han River and up the mountains to fill every last bit of habitable space.
Point of interest locators on the windows helped visitors spot local landmarks, and it was easy to pick out the the World Cup stadium, the massive Seoul train station, the Seoul National Museum and the palaces we had visited the previous day. And, if you're of the masculine persuasion, the men's bathroom orients its urinals towards the windows, providing the most spectacular view you'll ever see while taking a leak.
We then headed downstairs to the Teddy Bear Museum, a surprisingly detailed display created in 2001 which hosts the world's largest collection of teddy bears. Some thirty exhibits are set up showing various stages of Korean history and modern culture. The exhibits showcase the same level of attention and diligence that you'd expect from a traditional museum -- with the catch that all of the characters in the displays are teddy bears. Kitschy? Maybe. Geared towards kids? Probably. But it's unlike anything you've ever seen before, and the spin it put on scholarly topics was engaging.
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