If you want to take a walk along Namsan Road, it would be best to start from the exit 1 of Hangangjin Station (line 6). You may start from Chungmuro Station, Myeongdong Station, or Hoehyeon Station, but they are located on bustling streets so I suggest you to start from Hangangjin Station to feel the tranquility of the Namsan Road. When you walk up the exit of Hanganjin Station, you cannot but to notice blue letters “Nam-San-Ye-Sool-Won”(남산예술원) marked on the stairs. After you exit, continue following the blue letters. Then walk along an ivy-covered wall on your left, and you will meet a short stone stairs off the beaten track. Walk up the stairs, take the crosswalk, and turn left. Only after a few steps walking this road, which is beautiful enough to be a stroll route in itself, will bring you to another ivy-covered wall on your right. There begins the Namsan Road. Keep walking while you look cross-eyed at the trumpet creepers gorgeously blown among the ivy trails until you see a signboard of Namsan Park and Grand Hyatt Seoul across the road.
There are several gates into the Namsan Outdoor Botanical Garden. So, reserve it for later and just take the crosswalk there. Go past the Norwegian Embassy and take few steps toward Grand Hyatt. Then there is an Italian restaurant named La Cucina which has been in business since 1990. You may be forgiven to steal a glance into La Cucina for it is quite a well-known Italian restaurant in Korea. Now walk along the walls of Hyatt. On one corner of the beautiful road named “Pine Tree Road,” there is Kenyan Embassy, and on the back side of the embassy, there are many newly-built houses and private residences. This place used to be crammed with bonded fashion stores, but only a dozen stores remain here now. Walking further along the Pine Tree Road will lead you to high-walled residences of heads of Korean or multi-national conglomerates. According to a nearby realty dealer, the proportion of foreign residents to locals is 6 to 4.
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soweol road
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If you walk back heading forward Namsan Library and go past the Norwegian Embassy, you will meet Seo Jeong-gi Boutique, Pyo Gallery, and Lee Gwang-hee Boutique. This road is “Soweol Road.” At this point, cross the road and take a look around the Outdoor Botanical Garden and the Wild Flower Garden. Be mindful that it will take you quite some time to look around since garden itself is quiet big. You need to push crosswalk button if you are to change the traffic lights turn green. Don’t forget that unless you don’t press the button, you have to wait forever. The outdoor arboretum represents a collection of 117,132 plants of 269 different kinds that can grow in Seoul. And the Wild Flower Garden has 453 tall trees of 52 kinds including pine trees, 6,056 short trees of 46 kinds including boxwood trees, and 84,470 wild plants with 186 different kinds of flowers including a dicentra. Besides, there are a pond and a wetland, too. These are the result of one year park building project launched in 1995 at the place where foreign residents used to be. The facilities are open 24 hours, so take your time and enjoy the coffee you can buy from a mobile coffee vendor in front of the garden. The mobile coffee vendor, which is so famous that you never get coffee unless you line up to buy it, will be there from 7 PM.
A Street that History and Modernity Coexist
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| Namsan outdoor garden |
When you cross the road and head for the direction of the Goethe Institut Korea, you will going to pass by Namsan Gymnasium and Royal Danish Embassy.
The street abruptly starts to be bustling with people from Namsan Library when you pass by the entrance of the Library, At the library, you can watch “History of Seoul in Photographs” until Oct. 25.
From here, you will see Memorial Hall for Ahn Joong-geun after walking 5 minutes from the crossing gate of the parking lot. Go across the front yard of the Memorial Hall, you will see “the famous” Namsan stairway. Sitting under the big tree looking down on the stairs, I felt refreshed and wondered why I hadn’t realized there was such a wonderful place like this at the center of Seoul. I counted how many stairs are there as if I had to and it was 112 to be exact. From there, I rode the cable car and went up to the N Seoul Tower. You may walk, but it is also good to ride it for experience. Japanese tourists are most in number and there are some Chinese and Westerners. Cable car operates every 10 minutes and the riding time is 3 minutes.
N Seoul Tower is located on top of Namsan Mountain and is a place where you can get good night views of Seoul. Six years of tower construction was completed in 1975 , N Seoul Tower - Seoul Tower at the time - was open to the public in 1981 and became a popular tourist attraction. Then in 2000, it was acquired by YTN. CJ signed a contract with YTN to rent the tower for 10 years, and renovated and reopened it in December, 2005. So it was renamed the N Seoul Tower. N Seoul Tower is a communication tower accommodating television broadcasting antenna of KBS, MBC, and SBS along with FM radio transmission antenna of PBC, TBS, CBS, and BBS. 48 % of the Korean population is depending on this tower to watch TV or listen to the radio.
Meet High-tech Works of Art on Top of Seoul
To your surprise, you will be faced with High-tech works of art at the N Seoul Tower. First of all, take note of “The Travellers” by Cédric le Borgne, a French artist, suspended in the air on Palgakjeong Square. The human-shaped aluminum creature, hanging on wire ropes at the height of 10 meters, looks very mystical. “The Travellers” is an artifact to be better appreciated at night. “Electronic Fire” created by video performance artist Alexandre Kolinka is not at all inferior to Cédric le Borgne’s. N Seoul Tower is lit up red with video of fire shot off from the bottom of the tower. You can watch the video show every hour on the hour from 8 PM until 11 PM for 8 minutes each.
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| love padlocks site. |
The “love padlocks,” hanging all over the iron fence of the roof terrace, engender exotic feelings. At first, some sweethearts started to clamp padlocks in the hope that they will never get apart. And now, thousands of love padlocks are affixed there. Namsan observatory with a 360 degree view of Seoul is also a recommendation.
Once you are out to take a stroll along Namsan Road, why don’t you drop in on Namsangol Hanok Village (traditional Korean village) and the National Theater of Korea? Hanok Village has been open to the public since 1988 after restoring 5 Korean traditional houses designated as folklore data by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The National Theater of Korea, established in 1950, is the first theater in Asia and it moved to its current location in 1973.
I was a little surprised to find out that Namsan Road was very clean, modern, and stylish- far better than I expected. I felt good about it, but in the innermost recesses of my heart, I wished that I could have felt the traces of people who had passed by this road in the past, such as mossed stones or broken staircases. Doesn’t the resonance of our heart come from such things? I missed the smell of soil very much when I was lost in contemplation that we may miss more important things in life while we seek chic styles only.
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