29 March 2026
The inconvenient tombs
Seooreung Royal Tombs
The Seooreung royal tombs, complete with the double o in Seooreung is the lesser known of the many tomb sites across Seoul. It is also known as the west 5 tombs, in case you cannot deal with Seooreung existing as a word. It is very inconvenient to get to, as despite being somewhere fairly near to the centre of the city, it is a good 45 minutes walk from the nearest subway station. There is a bus, but it takes a lot to convince me to take a bus in central Seoul, although after my Tomb visit, I relented.
Once inside the tomb site, which costs all of a dollar to get in, you can look at many tombs (from a distance), the sign says 5, one of them was closed, I counted 6, so maybe there are 7.
There is also a kind of hiking trail around the back of the tombs, I thought I would get a top down tomb view or an unhindered skyline view, but alas, it was not to be, just lots of leafless tress.
I had planned to walk over the hill to a shopping mall, but that seemed to require climbing fences lined with cameras, so instead I went out the way I came in, decided it was too hot to walk about 10km along the highway to the destination mall and instead boarded a very convenient bus.
My hotel is on the central avenue where every protest and K-pop boy band military service ending party concert simultaneously occur each and every weekend (yes, I mean what I just wrote, it makes perfect sense). Today it was closed due to the alleged marathon, which featured distances between 5km and 10km according to signs I saw, so basically, not even close to being a marathon. I seem to recall running into the same marathon in previous years, literally running, sometimes I just start running for no reason.
The pink thing is the mascot of Seoul, and spokes-monster of the 'I Soul Seoul' tourism campaign, which replaced the I Seoul U campaign a few years ago, and is surely now due to be replaced with something even worse.
This is some of many tents erected to support the marathon.
I reached the end of the marathon. That's a lot of road. Too bad it's generally closed for protests.
The main palace. I have been there twice before. Last time it was surrounded by construction site walls constructing the ancient walls.
After a short subway line, I got off near here. A nice area to walk through. Much warmer today than I expected.
Here is the entry to the 5 tombs. They take t-money card, credit card etc. Very convenient.
Korea loves shoes, so everywhere you walk on gravel, you get given an opportunity to blow the dust off.
Due to the bitterly cold winter, with snow just a couple of weeks ago, the grass is all yellow. The sky is also very polluted today. This makes photos look, weird. Also, tomb 1 of x - I don't know how many in total there are but it is more than 5.
Those are the actual tombs, you cannot get near them.
This is another one. They are already looking the same.
And another.
People featured in numerous Netflix shows are buried there.
Nice view. Lots of pollution haze. Probably worse in person than the photo shows.
This is part of the hiking trail, it is more of a road, but parts really are quite steep.
Too many tombs.
Despite this toilet being taped off, there were many others available. However food and drink is banned inside the whole park, which might be challenging for some who 'hike' the hour long loop trail around the top.
Final tomb of the day.
After the bus, I got off in the middle of nowhere and got to examine this drain.
But right nearby is a 'new' area, one of the Starfield brands megamalls. It was indeed huge, but sadly nowhere really for a light lunch, just full dinner size hot meal options.
The inside was much like any other mall, many western brands, very clean, very large. This proves in Seoul you can easily go from tombs to malls in minutes.