We continued our sightseeing in Seoul following a noontime lunch eaten at a cafe near Changdeokgung Palace. During the remaining daylight hours, we planned to visit several different shrines as we continued our walking loop of the historic downtown before ending up back at our hotel once again. Later on, we would be visiting South Korea's national history museum followed by a trip up to the top of Seoul Tower. For the moment though, we had to make our way over to the entrance of the nearest shrine which turned out to be more of an adventure than we were anticipating:
On our way, we passed by this building named the Korea Saekdong Museum which was tucked away inside a residential neighborhood. We had no idea what this was and I had to look it up when doing the research for this page: apparently saekdong refers to a traditional Korean patchwork fabric consisting of stripes of bright colors based on the philosophical concept of the five elements and yin-yang. In other words, this was a local museum associated with this particular type of clothing which explained why it didn't show up in any of the tourist materials. We were content to skip this place in favor of other attractions. Then we passed by this Italian restaurant nearby which was named the Salon Sulla - I almost fell over in shock at seeing this place randomly appear in a Korean neighborhood! 
What drove the owner to name a restaurant in Seoul after Lucius Cornelius Sulla has to be a fantastic story in its own right. I really wish that we hadn't just eaten lunch, I would have loved to have gotten a meal here!
Anyway, we were trying to visit the historic Jongmyo Shrine which was located right next to Changdeokgung Palace on the maps that we had. Jongmyo Shrine still retains a stone wall surrounding it which blocked us from entering. Without knowing where the entry gates were located, I suggested we walk north because I figured there had to be an entrance over by the palace. This proved to be completely wrong: there was a northern gate but it was locked (with a very friendly guard telling us we had to go around to the south side), which resulted in the two of us walking three-quarters of the way around the whole shrine grounds instead of going the opposite direction which would have taken five minutes. Whoops, that was my mistake!
Eventually we reached the proper southern entrance to Jongmyo Shrine and paid the token entry fee to go inside. This is a Confucian royal ancestor shrine that houses memorial tablets and memorial services for Korea's deceased kings and queens. Although the original shrine was burned down in the Japanese invasion of 1592, the current buildings are still some of the oldest remaining in Seoul as they date back to the period immediately afterwards from the early 1600s. We found that most of the shrine complex was wooded parkland with a few walking trails running through them, nowhere near as densely built as the palaces that we had seen earlier in the day. This stone path was supposed to be used by ancestral spirits and visitors were asked not to walk on it; Liz was annoyed that I very briefly stepped on top to take a quick picture. We started out by visiting a small side building which had examples of replica spirit tablets and sealing chests that looked like the actual ones stored in the main portion of the shrine.
After we stopped at another side building where the king and crown prince made themselves ready for state rituals, we continued onwards until reaching the main hall of the shrine itself. This was Jeongjeon Hall which houses the portraits of Korea's most famous and successful kings, holding the memorial tablets of 19 kings and 30 queens in total at present. Or at least that's what we would have seen if the hall wasn't undergoing major construction at the time of our visit, argh! The construction crew had placed a tarp with an image of the shrine on the exterior wall so that there was still something to see but it definitely was a poor substitute for the real experience. Jeongjeon Hall is the longest building of traditional design that still survives in South Korea; here's what the interior with the memorial tablets looks like in an image pulled off the Internet. This was a real disappointment even if the rest of the shrine complex was pleasant to visit.
There was one more building of note located in a back corner of the grounds, this one named Yeongnyeongjeon Hall. It was dedicated to kings whose ancestors were old by the standards of the current reigning king or whose reigns were short-lived, instead housing the memorial tablets of only 16 kings and 18 queens. This building was effectively the overflow parking lot for Jeongjeon Hall when it ran out of space and therefore the less important monarchs were relegated over here. Yeongnyeongjeon Hall was not under construction but it was also not open for the public to view the memorial tablets either, thus leaving us with an empty courtyard to investigate. We were therefore a bit underwhelmed by Jongmyo Shrine since there wasn't too much for us to see here. The shrine remains in current use as there's a big festival every year where members of the historic royal family perform ceremonies asking for the blessings of the ancestral spirits commemorated here. That takes place in May and I'm guessing that there's more to see here during the warmer spring and summer months.
We began walking westward back in the direction of our hotel, passing along the way through the Insadong neighborhood district. Insadong is another shopping area known for beig the cultural art market of Seoul, where traditional and modern Korean artworks, such as paintings, sculptures and calligraphy are sold. There were plenty of restaurants to be found here as well, along with gaming establishments like the PC Bang captured in the first image. Seoul and South Korea more generally are known for their legendary PC Bangs or Internet cafes, and we popped into one briefly to check it out. This PC Bang had a full on kitchen serving food to its patrons, and it all seemed nice enough though we certainly weren't going to spend our vacation time playing League of Legends or Starcraft. We also stopped in a board game cafe which had a really cozy atmosphere but again, that wasn't how we wanted to spend our limited time in Seoul as appealing as it would have been otherwise.
At the northern end of Insadong was another one of Seoul's historic places of worship, the pictured Jogyesa Temple. This was a Buddhist temple instead of a Confucian shrine, and it was also privately owned instead of being run by the Korean government. Jogyesa Temple is the chief temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, with this building not nearly as old as the ones at Jongmyo Shrine and dating back only to 1910. Like many other religious institutions in Seoul, Jogyesa Temple has a history of serving as a focus for resistance and protest movements, initially against the Japanese colonial occupation in the first half of the 20th century and then against South Korea's military government in the 1970s and 1980s. We saw a number of signs throughout the temple advertising that visitors could sign up to experience the life of Buddhist monks at the temple or eat different kinds of Buddhist food, very much a contrast to the more austere and museum-like atmosphere at the previous shrine.
If anything, Jogyesa Temple had somewhat of a carnival atmosphere as there was a performing stage that was in the process of disassembly. We guessed that it had probably been in use the previous night on Saturday evening without knowing one way or another. The tradeoff for being more down-to-earth than Jongmyo Shrine was the messiness of Jogyesa Temple, with this place having nowhere near the neatness of the other shrine and looking outright dirty in some places where the cleanup was still underway. We did like the presence of two sacred trees, the White Pine tree and the Chinese Scholar tree, the latter of which looked like it could have come straight out of classical East Asian artwork. We were able to go inside the main building at Jogyesa Temple (after removing our shoes of course) but were not allowed to photograph the interior; here's a picture of what it looked like from the Internet.
Jogyesa Temple was only a few blocks away from our hotel and we headed back there to rest for about an hour afterwards, thoroughly tired from having walked so far throughout the day. While we were recuperating, we stumbled across... something on the local television. It appeared to be a charity baseball game as best we could tell, with a mixture of professional and amateur players on the field together. The professional players were doing all sorts of stunts like trying to catch popup flies behind their back and dressing up in crazy costumes to hit and run the bases. Neither of us knew any Korean so we didn't really know what was going on but it was certainly entertaining to watch for a few minutes.
It was night by the time that we left the hotel for dinner and we headed back to Insadong to do a bit more window shopping. The streets were still quite crowded despite the cold temperatures and this being a Sunday as opposed to a Saturday evening. We browsed through a number of different stores and picked up some souvenirs for our family members, like some small figurines for our nephews/nieces and a tie with Korean hangul symbols mixed into the design for my brother. We were also looking for a place to get dinner and decided on Korean food for this meal, picking a place that served beef hot pot located down in the basement of one of the larger buildings. This was a slightly more expensive meal but still reasonably priced, and the food was absolutely delicious. It was the kind of place where we would have returned again for another meal if we had been in Seoul for more than three days.
We also walked back down to the LOTTE department store near Myeongdong, crossing over Cheonggyecheon again which was once again beautiful to see in the soft glow of night. This time we went into the department store and explored its many floors for a bit, although without finding anything that we wanted to buy. We also had one of our more surreal experiences on a side street nearby: a 7-Eleven located literally on the side of the road from another 7-Eleven. What was going on there?! Did Seoul not have enough 7-Elevens already, it needed another one less than 10 meters from a previously existing 7-Eleven? We were so confused here! 
The next morning we had another quick breakfast and then headed off to visit this building, the National Museum of Korea. This necessitated a subway ride as the museum was a bit too far away to be in walking distance of our hotel, located not too distant from the Han River that flows through the middle of Seoul. The National Museum is the flagship showcase of Korean art and history and dates back to its establishment in 1945 following the end of the Japanese occupation. The location of the museum has moved around a number of times, not least for safety during the chaos of the Korean War, before finding a permanent home at its current Yongsan Family Park location in 2005. Today the museum collections total about 300,000 artifacts out of which roughly 15,000 are on display at any point in time, and at time of writing this was the sixth largest museum space in the world. The building certainly looked gigantic as we approached it from the nearby metro station.
These are some pictures of the main entrance and extremely tall foyer area where we purchased our tickets to the museum. The National Museum of Korea had three floors of exhibits and we knew immediately that there was far too much for us to see in one visit, not unless this was going to be the only thing that we saw today. We decided that we would avoid the third floor which had historical artifacts from around the world, and instead concentrate on the first floor galleries which were specifically devoted to Korean history. Neither one of us knew that much about Korean history and this was the museum with the best collections on that particular subject. The second floor was dedicated to various forms of Korean art, which also would have been amazing to see but the place was simply too big and we didn't manage to get to them.
This historical portion of the museum was laid out in chronological order, starting with the Bronze and Iron Age cultures that inhabited the Korean peninsula and then proceeding into the historical period where the first organized states began to form. The mountainous nature of the Korean peninsula meant that the area was often divided between various warring states, much like the similar geographic and political situation in ancient Greece. These early Korean kingdoms were enormously influenced by the nearby presence of China, especially after it was united under the Qin and Han dynasties into an extremely powerful ancient empire. Technology, religion, writing, etc. all traveled over to Korea where they were each adapted into their own unique local forms. Of particular note in the museum was a display of four guardian deities from a tomb that dated back to the Goguryeo period of the 5th century and which was reproduced here. These various dragons, tigers, phoenixes, and serpents looked really awesome and stood out for their connection to the constellations of the night sky. We also enjoyed reading about the medieval Korean kingdom of Silla which used gold not only as a status symbol but also as a means of tying the kingdom together through gifts to high-ranking officials. There were a lot of gold objects on display from this era that couldn't be seen anywhere else in the world.
About two-thirds of the way through the historical exhibits on the first floor was this room which was showcasing something completely different. The entire room had wraparound video screens which cycled through scenery from traditional Korean artwork, making the whole place seem to come to life. The whole thing was animated and there was atmospheric music playing in the background; these static images really don't do a good job of conveying the experience. The effect was really fun to see and this made for a great place to stop and rest for a few minutes before continuing on to the remainder of the floor.
Finally we arrived at the modern era of Korean history and the period where I started to have some familiarity with the materials. There were writing samples from the 15th and 16th centuries, a map showing Seoul during the Joseon period and including some of the palaces that we had visited the previous day, along with a reproduction of the royal throne room. The museum had a whole section covering the Japanese invasion of 1592-1598 and the devastating effects that it had on East Asia, with the conflict ultimately engulfing all of Joseon Korea, Ming China, and the early stages of Tokugawa Shogunate Japan. The museum tended to gloss over the fact that Korea was a Chinese vassal state for much of the following period, which was characterized by prosperity while also being isolated from the rest of the world, before the Korean state tried to reemerge as an imperial power in the late 19th century. This was an ill-fated attempt and the Korean Empire only lasted from 1897-1910 before another Japanese invasion overthrew the government and instituted colonial rule. That was where the museum's chronology ended as it did not cover any of the events of the 20th century. We had wanted to go see the nearby War Memorial of Korea which addresses some of these conflicts but unfortuantely it was closed by virtue of this being a Monday.
It was around noon by this point and we decided to stop in the museum gift store before getting lunch in the cafeteria. The items for sale in the gift store tended to be upscale and pretty pricey, without anything we liked enough to purchase. The cafeteria, on the other hand, was downright impressive as it had a huge selection of different food options which were affordable, delicious, and had giant portion sizes. Just look at the size of that corn dog that we ordered! Neither Liz nor I was able to finish our meals because there was just so much of everything to eat. Long story short, we would definitely recommend the cafeteria as a meal option for anyone coming to visit the museum.
We had looked at the various tourist attractions in Seoul in terms of how to spend our afternoon, and we ultimately decided that that we would use this time to visit Seoul Tower. This is one of the most popular destinations in Seoul and there are no public roads leading up to the summit; visitors can either walk up a trail that follows part of the old city wall or else ride a cable car to the top. We didn't have the time or the energy to do the hike up to the top (although I would enjoy trying this if we get the chance to come back to Seoul again), instead taking a taxi ride to the base of Mount Namsan where we purchased two tickets for the gondola ride. It was pretty crowded despite this being a random Monday afternoon in early December as we packed into the cable car with two dozen other tourists. We were treated to some nice views of the city as the cable car ascended upwards, with the additional height starting to provide a sense for the massive scale of the city's size.
The gondola ride brought us close to the top of Mount Namsan where there was a plaza area in front of Seoul Tower itself. What jumped out right away was the presence of enormous numbers of padlocks attached to every surface in this plaza, locks in a rainbow of colors on every railing and every flat surface. There were even some of them attached to tree branches near the walkways! These were the "Locks of Love" which are a tradition at Seoul Tower, with couples hanging locks that symbolize their eternal love for one another. After attaching the lock, the key is supposed to be thrown away as a sign of everlasting love, and this tradition has been popular enough to be depicted in many Korean television shows, dramas, and movies. These things were almost a bit overwhelming and when looking closely we could see that many of them had been hanging there long enough to have started rusting. Seoul Tower is hardly the only place to have this tradition with the locks and it was still cute to see even if it had been taken a bit overboard.
There was also a viewing platform at the northern end of the plaza which provided sweeping views looking out to the northern side of Mount Namsan. I think this was when it really hit us just how gigantic the city of Seoul really was and how small a portion of the metropolis we had been seeing. Seoul is the largest city in South Korea and it has about 26 million people living in its total metro region; this is quite a bit larger than any city in the United States which tops out around 20 million in New York City at the time of writing. Despite the hilly nature of the local geography, apartments and high rise buildings seemed to stretch out endlessly in every direction. And remember, this was only the view to the north - we couldn't even see the Han River or anything located to the south of the mountain! We would have to take the elevators to the top of the tower to get the full view but the city was plenty impressive enough from here.
Now it was time to visit the tower itself (which did require paying an entry fee to ride the elevators). The official name for this building is the N Seoul Tower although it's typically called the Seoul Tower or Namsan Tower for short. It was constructed in 1971 for use as a communications tower and observation deck, and since then has become one of the defining landmarks of the city. What we did not expect was that Seoul Tower was also a five-floor shopping mall with a dozen different stores and several restaurants inside! Liz actually purchased a gift mug from the Starbucks inside the tower while I was disappointed to find that the arcade didn't have a DDR machine. (Sadly DDR was getting pretty old by 2023, much like me.) After we poked around in the mall for a little bit, we headed to the big elevators that carry visitors up to the observation deck. There was a big waiting room for those elevators which had a projector set up much like what we had seen at the National Museum. It was running through a series of different video patterns, including a Christmas-themed one that looked like Santa's workshop. Needless to say, we hadn't been expecting to see that when we bought our tickets.
We actually had to wait for about 10 minutes before riding the elevator even though the place was deserted; maybe the staff was on a shift change or taking a break, we never found out what was going on. Once we reached the observation deck, we were treated to even higher views looking out across the entirety of the city of Seoul. We could see the rest of the park area covering Mount Namsan, an island of green in the middle of a vast sea of buildings. This was the only time that we ever saw the river that flows through Seoul, nor did we ever have a chance to cross over to the neighborhood districts on the south side like the famous Gangnam. There's a ton of things for tourists to see over there but we simply didn't have the time to go exploring in the three days that we had for this visit. Maybe next time if we come back to Seoul again. We did purchase one souvenir here at the tower: a little music box associated with the tiger zodiac sign since our son William was born during the Year of the Tiger in 2022. It was a nice little keepsake from this trip.
It was late afternoon by the time that we took the elevator down from the top of the tower, then we still had to ride the gondola back down to the foot of Mount Namsan and catch another taxi back to our hotel. We rested there for about an hour and then headed out to get some dinner on our final evening in Seoul. I suggested that we make one stop before eating though: visiting LoL Park which happened to be located only two blocks away from our hotel. This is where Korea broadcasts its League of Legends competition, at least as of 2023, for the organization that used to be called OGN and now goes by LCK. It was located on the third floor of an otherwise anonymous office building, at least until reaching the nearby escalators which had League of Legends artwork depicting the various champions listed in release order. The third floor was completely taken over by League of Legends branding, with this Christmas display featuring Yuumi along with jerseys for the teams currently competing in LCK and posters of some of the most famous Korean players.
The broadcast studio itself was closed up tight so we were unable to see inside. We definitely would have gone to see a match if that had been possible, however we were visiting during the offseason for League of Legends. Korea's T1 team had just celebrated their fourth world championship three weeks before our visit by crushing Weibo Gaming in the 2023 finals, with Faker cementing himself even further as the greatest player in the game's history. There were more League of Legends characters on display scattered around the floor, big life-sized models of the champions in hipster attire and more stylized artwork painted on the walls. We found a store selling food named the Bilgewater Cafe, which was open due to the PC Bang that LoL Park also runs and which had people playing games inside. This wasn't where we wanted to get dinner, of course, though I'll include a picture of their menu for the curious. And then there was a store selling League of Legends merchandise which bizarrely had no staff present and a sign noting that they would be back in 30 minutes. Korean culture is a lot more trusting than what we were used to; I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't leave merchandise completely unattended for half an hour in the United States! We had to wait for the staff to return and then I was able to purchase a Teamfight Tactics Featherknight plushie which was one of my favorite souvenirs from this trip.
These were some pictures of LoL Park's PC Bang for the curious. It was a bit nicer than the other PC Bang we had visited the previous day though I believe it was also a bit more expensive too. League of Legends seemed to be the most popular game here but I definitely saw people playing other titles as well; Diablo 4 seemed to be well-received too. I actually thought about trying to play a TFT game on the Korean server while I was here, however that's not possible without a Korean account and it's apparently really hard to get them for non-Koreans. Oh well.
We were overwhelmed with choices once again when it came time to have dinner before eventually deciding on this German-themed restaurant named the Bier Halle. It definitely felt odd eating in a restaurant that tried to replicate a German beer hall while visiting Seoul but that was part of the fun. Liz ordered a plate with different kinds of sausages while I had some spicy chicken wings which did not fit the theming of this establishment. Once again, the portion sizes were huge and neither one of us could finish our meals; my wings were also just a bit too spicy and had me gulping down my drink. It was a great meal to conclude the day and we were only sorry that it meant our time on this short vacation was coming to a close.
The following day was spent traveling back home to the United States without having a chance to do any further sightseeing. We had a morning flight that lasted for 13 hours and arrived in Boston at basically the same time that we left thanks to fun with time zone changes. Then we had a much shorter second flight from Boston down to Washington DC where we arrived in the afternoon and had time to go pick up our son from his day care. I had dropped him off on a Tuesday morning and then we picked him up on a Tuesday afternoon exactly one week later, with my parents filling in as his caretakers during that intervening span. It was a lot of traveling for only one week spent overseas but we still had a great time and did the best we could to take advantage of this opportunity. We didn't come anywhere close to seeing all of the main attractions in Ho Chi Minh City or Seoul and perhaps with luck we'll get the chance to go back again sometime. Until then, thanks as always for reading along!
