is seoul safe? we were wondering that same thing before we got here as anyone would before they
travel to any new city after just a few days we're doing things any traveler would consider
stupidly risky blindly going into neighborhoods we know nothing about leaving our cell phones out
in plain sight while we walk away for a few minutes so what is it about seoul that made
us put our guards down for the first time in a long time it's all the little things
we'll show you what we mean on the way up to the seoul tower and namsan park
very regal is somebody trying to steal you from me did someone give you a flower it's
buddha's birthday and they gave me a flower and some juice and some cakes
after eating some free food given to us by a stranger we started our way up the mountain
and we were immediately surprised by just how many people were choosing to spend their
sunday walking up this thing haven't any of them heard of unlimited mimosas at brunch
we just left the hanok village and it started off as a pretty peaceful and quiet morning
i admittedly was still half asleep but now it's bustling and lively there's so many people walking
all the way up we're heading all the way up to seoul tower and
it's like the camino de soul right now it's really fun
i feel super unprepared for this thing compared to everybody else out here who's decked out in
amazing awesome fancy hiking gear it's just me and my same old shoes that i've literally
worn since the camino uh and this old raggedy t-shirt that i went for a run in this morning
we were all hungry luckily for us there's a restaurant right on the path
you order your food from this robot over here that you tap on
the screen and decide what you want and then it gives you this flashing
so there are a lot of things that i love in south korea for sure but one of my top five things
for sure is bibimbap that's what we're having right here you get this assortment of different
vegetables spicy sauce bulgogi and me i like to take it all and just
slide it all onto there and mix it all up but a lot of people like to eat it separately
i don't know i guess i'm just more of a mixer
weirdo
after leaving that great little restaurant we noticed that there was a free badminton
court with all the equipment just laying out for anyone to play with
out
even with the non-stop stairmaster that we were on we were amazed the roads are well paved trails
well marked there was an outdoor gym and more importantly people were actually using it there's
a full-on squat rack and bench press here this is amazing we gotta come out here and work out
i felt like we had been transported to an entirely different multiverse
kilometer steps is yeah it's a lot
it's a lot maybe the cable car wasn't such a bad idea this is definitely a stairmaster
but luckily the views are so impressive
the thing that i find super impressive about this trail or this walk is not just the beauty
the greenery the actual infrastructure and also retaining of the culture also just how
peaceful and quiet it is there's no sounds no cars no traffic no honking and we're right
again in the middle of seoul
so this right here is the old city wall built in 1396 and this is part of a bigger city wall
trail that goes around the entire city limits of where old seoul used to be before they expanded
out past the city wall a long time ago you can actually walk the entirety of the thing
the full loop going up and over mountains just it seems awesome it's about 12 miles long and
yeah i think we should probably do it someday i'm just continually impressed with how good of a job
seoul and south korea has done with making things feel both incredibly new
and modern but with also not forgetting the old and the culture that built it in the first place
so we're at north soul tower and at the top up here is you know that thing and
that's interesting it's a giant basically antenna tower for broadcasting radio and tv
to most of the people in seoul and to also a lot of the rest of korea
so it's interesting but really the reason that you're coming up here is for the view
it is a tower and it is quite tall and beautiful and apparently there's an observatory
at top and a food court and of course a gift shop but i would argue that the best part was actually
walking up here there's got to be a life lesson in that too right
and then we met this guy and all the little things that we had noticed along the way
they started to make sense okay this thing is super cute and i just read what it is this is
and it says it's an imaginary creature that helps realize justice and brings safety and happiness
justice safety and happiness i think my heart just cried
even more i loved i love haichi i love seoul this is this is my justice safety happy place
now it might be terribly named pocari sweat just this doesn't sound all that appetizing but it is
the perfect drink after a long hike up a mountain no we're not sponsored by them it's kind of like
a less sugary less salty gatorade so basically just like better in all ways after downing an
energy drink it was time to pump some iron with some big big big 15 pound bench presses
we then followed the city wall back down to this incredible park
this entire trail goes through all these different parks and historic landmarks and
now we're just surrounded by families having meals and picnics out here i
gosh seoul just makes me so happy it's really hard to describe this in words but there's something so
so fulfilling to me to see people enjoying their own city the way that seoul does right now
we were seeing all generations children parents their parents grandparents
oh it just it fills my soul and it makes me want to it makes me want to go home hug my mom
hug my family i just it represents the the peace and the love and the family joy that i think
that i think i maybe that we all want
the city wall then leads you straight to seoul station a much busier much
louder place this place is amazed and we haven't even got to the main station yet
so we're starting our search for dinner at the aptly named gangnam food street
i think we're in the right place
this area is super busy it's like a monday night right now and there's just crisscrossing scooters
and people and so much going on there's so many restaurants here don't forget to look upstairs
too there's a lot of cafes that are up on the second floor of these buildings after walking
past about a thousand amazing restaurants we of course predictably went back to korean barbecue
do they call it korean barbecue here did you just call it barbecue or did they just call it
restaurant i don't what it what do you call it here this is definitely my most favorite
kind of eating communal everybody's sitting around the table doing something very active
definitely prefer the high drop method oh boy i feel like it really makes it easier to spread
that was delicious it's about 8 p.m right now in gangnam and things seem to be just
starting to come to life but we have unfortunately got to move on because
we are about to go to what i think is the best thing that you can do anywhere in seoul
this is a metro station it's so so cool
the thought didn't even cross our mind that it was going to be dark and we were going
to go to a park in the middle of the night so we headed off to bampo bridge
it turns out on a monday night that everybody else had the exact same idea okay we're at bamboo
bridge and this is what i think is the perfect way to end any night in seoul but you need a
couple of things first once you make it here chicken shack in lisa's hometown a convenience
store like a 7-eleven was never a place where good things ever happen i'm so bummed that we just ate
because i am totally down for hot soup and ramen this looks so good they have whole stations like
seven stations lined up for people to make their ramen bowls you would never get the food
from there unless you had literally no other choice but here are their friendly welcoming
spaces where people go to eat get affordable great food and even hang out for a while
we got the beers we got the pringles unfortunately the chicken shop is closed this is this is a
full-on disaster but i think we still got enough to make the best out of this i love watching
everybody carry their bowls of soup and ramen across the street to go watch the show starting
this is really really cool i love the bridge and the lights but i think the coolest part is that
everybody's out here with their friends and their families and their they're picnicking and having a
party like this is all legit it's a celebration everybody's out here and it's a monday night
so this is it bonpo bridge every single night from 7 30 on every half an hour it does this
i mean it's not like this place is without its problems no place is perfect we know that like
sometimes being a pedestrian here can feel like you're playing frogger in real life but we also
saw people leave their phones and laptops unlocked in a busy cafe while they went outside for a smoke
we saw school children around the age of 5 to 10 riding the subway by themselves to and from school
but back to the original question is seoul safe now this is just coming from our perspective of
being tourists here for about a week so we don't really know anything about what it's
like to actually live here but if you ask us is seoul safe from our perspective definitely
no one's clapping and i don't understand why that was so cool and pretty why why is no one clapping
another refuel of coffee what are you digging for just trying to find my stuff out of your bag there
oh wow
this is b-duck we're almost at the top and b-duck is full of all his friends
and lots of i don't know what i'm saying this is b-duck
stop
you almost look like apple blossom apple bottom
what do you got to tell us so many things to say