16 April 2023
The roof garden
Lotte Mall Gwangbok
I think the local Lotte mall was closed yesterday for tax filing day. April 15 is tax day in the USA, maybe Korea is the same? That is the best my detective skills have come up with.
So to make sure they have reopened as promised, this evening I slowly wandered up the end of the street to find out, and yes it was open, and yes they have the best roof garden of any department store I am aware of anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, after that I think I got profiled, the restaurant floor restaurants all had last order 8pm signs, and at 7pm they told me sorry, closed. Then I saw 2 places that turned me away admit other people who were not foreigner groups of one. So that was annoying. As a result I ended up with a dinner I did not want.
There is part of the Lotte mall complex at the end of the street my hotel is on.
To get there I went through some dried fish product stalls in the process of closing.
Now for the roof garden shots. It really is a great roof garden. For some reason there are less and less of these on the top of big stores, a lot of them are now closed off permanently, presumably because people jump?
The view is not as good when there is no sun, but there are a lot of boats.
This is part of the area ABOVE the roof garden, where you can laze around on the actual roof.
And here is a bit more of the upper roof deck area.
Some more view in another direction.
Part of the garden. The grass looks a bit dead. There is actually a dog walking area too.
Garden and sunset.
Top tip, do not pay to go up that tower, come to the Lotte roof garden instead.
OK, the last one of the roof garden.
Not only was this restaurant my 3rd pick, the meal I wanted was sold out (hot soba with deep fried vegetables). Instead I got a huge amount of very dark coloured cold soba and a pork schnitzel. Another case of find the flavour (I failed). I do not mind soba, but prefer it hot, the whole dunk it in the cold broth from about 2 metres above the table and then get it in your mouth without splashing everything in a 3 metre radius is unnecessary fanfare.
I should have gone to the basement, that was still open and there were many good places to eat. It seems I am not good enough for the 10th floor restaurants, I am forever just a basement dweller.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, but I think there will be a lot of walking, I have a plan already.