Because we had such a good experience the night of our N. Grill excursion, and because we didn't bring my camera with us that night, we wanted to go back to Namsan Tower and get some night photos. But, we also wanted to experience day time views and eat at the Hancook Restaurant, a Korean buffet style restaurant 2 levels beneath the N. Grill. So, we had Robert call and make us a lunch reservation . Compared to the $120 a plate pricetag upstairs, this restaurant cost us $45 a piece for the lunch buffet. It would have been $10 dollars cheaper had we gone on a weekday versus a weekend, but I had failed to read that prior to our visit. Boo hoo:( They offered a wide variety of Korean dishes and we thoroughly enjoyed trying most of them. Neither of us are big seafood fans, so we skipped over anything that had an ocean habitat in their pre-cooked life and piled up on the remainder. Unlimited coffee and ice cream also came with our meal, which was awesome, since it enabled us to sit there much longer after our meal and enjoy the view!
Our reservation was for 1:00. We saw mostly families up there, so it is probably safe to say that Sunday lunch is a family event at the Hancook. It was definitely not a couple's place that day or time, that's for sure. The only downside of the experience was that the floor didn't spin like the N. Grill, but we knew that going in.
After our meal ended, we headed back to the bottom of the tower and were lucky enough to be just in time for a historic presentation, complete with swordsmen in costume! They were more than likely a professional entertainment troupe of performers . It was amazing! The show lasted about 45 minutes and we had front row seats. Much to the delight of everyone there, they hung around afterwards to let us take pictures. Teppy and I made a b-line for the savvy young warrior in black who was really impressive with his blades. We wanted to get some photos with the others too, but their "photo window" was only like 10 minutes, so there wasn't time since we had waited a while to get the photo with the black warrior.
Once the entertainers cleaned up and shipped out, they turned the fountains on and it became a giant family hangout! Kids were everywhere and we photographed them running through the mist and playing with water guns. (See our post about kids in Korea). We also used the opportunity to photograph couples in their "couples outfits". We got lots of those photos too. (see our post about couples culture in Korea). Sitting and smelling the roses at Namsan that afternoon for 5.5 hours was a treat. We saw all kinds of people and it was interesting to watch them interact with each other. We noted there was a marked absence of baby strollers considering the large amount of young children there. In the states, it would have been a parking lot of baby prams.
While sitting in the shade at the base of the tower, somebody kicked a glass bottle over on the stairs close to us and glass shattered everywhere. The person who kicked it walked away and everyone around just looked at it and ignored it. I, who had been watching kids climb all over the stairs for the last 2 hours, immediately got up and began cleaning it up. One girl (and I say girl because she was in her early 20's) told me to just leave it and it would be ok. I told her no, I would not leave it, because children were playing there and I didn't want anyone to get cut. She must have understood me because she and the people around me immediately began to clean up the glass. I guess people without kids just don't get it, do they? Not 30 minutes later, a toddler was climbing up the stairs where the bottle had broken. I'm glad I stood up for what was right earlier and we cleaned that glass up. Looking back, the whole "just leave it" attitude surprised me, considering how clean Korea is... and it stays clean despite public garbage cans being next to impossible to find! Oh well. Glass gone, kids safe, young people with no kids learned something. Success!
Another thing that tickled my fancy at the tower was the presence of professional ahjussi photographers camped out in various places trying to sell their services to people. They had wide angle lenses and would take your photo and include the whole tower in the photo behind you. They packed up promptly at 6:00 p.m., but the whole 3 hours we sat there with them, not one person hired their services. Everybody and their mother had an iPhone attached to these long, telescopic poles, so "the Namsan selfie" was quite a popular thing. I'm sure the ahjussi photographers were hired by the Namsan Park commission to be there or something like that, but I felt bad for them because at their age (which was easily in the 60's and 70's), they should have been at home with their families enjoying their Sunday.
When 8:30 arrived and it was dark enough to get some good shots, I took a few photos and we caught the cable car back down the mountain. At the bottom, we walked over to Myeong-dong, which was super close. There we ate at a dirty ass Burger King, which would never pass a US inspection, and took some other night shots. Myeong-dong is a really fun place too. I will post about that place in another blog entry.