Korea Day 5: Gangnam Area and nearby

On our 5th day in Seoul, we decided to visit south side of the Han river, including the Gangnam district.

Our morning started with several activities in the Lotte World Tower: Seoul Sky, Lotte World Mall, and the Lotte World Aquarium. In the afternoon, we visited the nearby Olympic Park and CoEX Mall. After having mostly seeing the more historic and traditional areas of Seoul, this area had a quite different feel. With skyscrapers, endless malls, and cookie-cutter apartment towers, we potentially got a more realistic picture (albeit an upscale picture – Gangnam is a trendy, affluent district) of aspects many residents of the city might experience on a more regular basis.

Lotte World Tower

Lotte World Tower is the tallest building in Korea, and currently one of the 5 tallest buildings in the world. At 123 stories, it’s on the site of the Lotte World Mall and has many other activities for both locals and tourists.

James really likes observatory towers and aquariums, so we knew that we would be visiting both the Seoul Sky and the Lotte World Aquarium. Tons of Korean children have been to the amusement parks at either Lotte World Adventure (indoor park) and Lotte World Magic Island (outdoor park), one ticket covers them both. If you prefer museums, activities could include the Lotte World Folk Museum (Korean website only, use a web browser like Chrome that offers website translation) or the Lotte World Museum of Art. There is also the Seokchan Lake to stroll around. (The Lotte Group is a large Korean conglomerate.)

Getting there

From where we were staying in Myeongdong, it ended up being a solid 35-40 minute subway ride to the Jamsil station right next to Lotte World Mall. The subway was modern and going a reasonable speed – Seoul is just plain vast. It gave us a fresh appreciation for the scale of Seoul.

Seoul Sky Observation Deck

On arrival to Seoul Sky, an observatory deck at the top of the Lotte World Tower, we knew that it was a bit cloudy, but it was now or never. The people selling us tickets also helpfully warned us about the clouds, but we really like observatory towers, so we decided to go ahead and go up. While the views weren’t ideal, it was still nice to go.

It took a little while to wander the observation decks, and it was fairly uncrowded given the conditions. We probably could have taken more pictures, but spent a little while at the cafe towards the top, admiring the views. There was even an area where you could go out to a [protected] balcony, though with the strong wind, it felt a little crazy.

Lotte World Aquarium

Next, we took the elevator down to the mall and made our way to the Lotte World Aquarium, which was a reasonable size.

There was a better assortment than we expected for an aquarium at a mall – not just small colorful fish but e.g. sharks, manta rays, crabs, ringed seals, and belugas.

As we purchased our tickets, we learned that we could have gotten a slightly better price if we’d bought a combo ticket at Seoul Sky, but oh well.

Lotte World Mall

We then spent some time wandering through the mall, soaking in the atmosphere of local Koreans going about their everyday lives and seeing which items were of interest to Koreans. We ended up eating at a Korean barbecue place in near the mall food court.

One interesting ad we saw was for Krispy Cream donuts, “Don’t worry, be belly.” What does this mean? It seems odd to remind your customers that too much of your food could create a large belly. Apparently it is a promotion for a Korean character called “Bellygom”…

Olympic Park

Having finished at the Lotte World Tower, we got on the subway for one stop to Olympic Park, which was built to host the 1988 Olympics. It hosts many different competition facilities as well as a couple of museums.

Unfortunately, the main museum that we were interested in visiting, the Olympic Museum, ended up being closed for renovations. Sometimes things like this happen and you make the best of it.

We could have visited the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, the Mongchon Museum of History, or the Seoul Baekje Museum, but – at day 5 in the trip, we just weren’t in the mood. We did wander the lake and park a bit, including the Sculpture Park area.

Overall, the park was quite pleasant. James really likes seeing different countries’ flags, and enjoyed that exhibit. There were flags were from all the countries that completed in the 1988 Olympics, including entities that no longer exist like East Germany, USSR, and Czechoslovakia. We did check – there was no North Korean flag, but they didn’t compete that year.

CoEX Mall

Next, we took another subway ride to the CoEX Mall. There was a Gangnam Style monument outside, referencing the famous video with 4 Billion+ views. There are apparently some other Gangnam Style landmarks in the district as well.

The CoEX mall has a super modern feel and also happens to be the largest underground shopping mall in Asia. While there, we got our picture of the Starfield Library bookstore.

There were a few other places in the district that we had on our list, but since we had a very long day planned the following day, we decided not to overdo ourselves and to head back to our home base.

Our conclusions were that the Gangnam area was interesting to see, but that the 35-40 minute metro ride was quite a haul from the Myeongdong area. While we were glad we made the trek, if you are short on time and don’t care about modern shopping or some of the other places mentioned in this post, consider substituting a different area of town.

Dessert in Myeongdong

Getting back to Myeongdong, it was late afternoon. A friend at home had recommended getting shave ice at Sulbing Cafe, just down the street from our hotel. Great choice! Though the food was a bit bigger than we anticipated!