Inwangsan Mountain Park
For our last day in Korea, we decided to begin by re-trying the walk up Inwangsan. This time however, we took a taxi to a different starting point, nearer to the peak, as it was yet another very hot and humid day, so we wanted to reduce the amount of uphill walking!
We followed the old city wall as it snaked up the mountain and were rewarded with a great view over the city towards Namsam
We reached a view point about 2/3rd of the way up where we could sit, cool down and look out over the view
We could see Gyeongbokgung Palace and Insadong, where we were staying
We opted to turn around at this point. It was just too hot to carry on up more of the mountain, so we retraced our steps back down.
Dongnimmun Arch
We continued to follow the wall further downhill until we reached Dongnimmun Arch, a memorial independence gate built in 1898
Panorama Bakery Cafe
From Dongnimmun we caught a bus and went on a 40 minute journey to the north of the city and just into Bukhansan National Park, which borders Seoul.
We had been planning on taking a day trip into the mountains for some proper walking, but the heat and my foot had prevented that from happening, so I thought an indulgent lunch at this scenic cafe I’d spotted whilst planning the holiday would help make up for it!
Jingwansa Temple
After lunch we walked from the cafe to Jingwansa Templ, since it was fairly close by,
Eunpyeong Hanok Village
From Jingwansa we then walked through Eunpyeong Hanok Village. This is a modern housing development only built in the last few years, but all the houses are the traditional Hanok style
As usual, after any amount of walking on this holiday, we needed a cold drink. So before we caught the bus back into Seoul, we had a final iced watermelon drink in a Hanok cafe.
DDP
In the evening we squeezed in a visit to Dongdaemun Design Plaza to see the unusual architecture and also visit the DDP design store which sells nice arty Korean themed souvenirs
We couldn’t resist a final dinner of super crispy and peppery Korean fried chicken.
Jogyesa Temple
On our walk back after dinner we saw that all the lanterns were still lit at Jogyesa so we had a little look around before heading back to the hotel to pack, ready to go to the airport first thing in the morning.
