The zoo is but one attraction in the Seoul Grand Park, which is actually outside of Seoul in a place called Gwacheon, there is also a forest bathing area, a hobby museum, museum of contemporary art, rose garden, botanical gardens and a roller coaster theme park to name a few.
Throughout many of the photos below you can see some big mountains nearby, I am planning to climb the biggest one tomorrow, weather and toes permitting.
Before I got to the zoo, I was amazed that the normally clogged streets around my hotel were completely abandoned apart from rubbish blowing around and a few zombies. I feared this may be the case all day however when I came back in the afternoon they were more clogged than ever. It seems everywhere is just opening late for the national holiday.
Unfortunately, this included starbucks and all other coffee places, and once I got to the zoo there was no coffee. Given the density of coffee shops throughout the city I found this weird, there was a kfc, lots of Korean saussage on a stick places, 10 family marts etc. But none had real coffee, just the stuff in a tin. I had one of those but it still took me a while to wake up. I think I have a problem....
The zoo itself was great, admission was $3 (more than Taiwan), and it is huge. They dont have any pandas and there is a focus on big cats. The few Koreans that were there at this time have no problems banging on the glass and clapping their hands to try and annoy the animals, I saw a kid lob a rock at a monkey and his parents didnt seem to mind.
Getting here at 9AM had its pros and cons, there were very few people about (as I was leaving the stream of people coming in was mind boggling), but also some exhibits were still shut as I walked past.
All in all I rate this the second best zoo I have been to, Taipei > Seoul > Singapore > Tokyo.
The abandoned streets of Myeong-Dong.
Here I am, in my camo shorts, ready to take over. Lots of kids in camo gear doing military service filled the trains, seems they are allowed to go home for the day. Which makes me wonder, who is guarding the border? Maybe today is the day I can escape to the glorious north.
That mountain sure does look enticing, theres some sort of structure at the top and plenty of rocky outcrops for me to plummet to my grisly death.
You have to ride on many themed things in the zoo, here I am on the electric elephant train.
The pink flamingoes were really quite pink, I thought the photo came out well.
I was also pretty happy with how this giraffe picture turned out.
This asshole monkey is poking his tongue out at me. I returned the favour then mooned him for good measure.
A baby chimpanze, theres heaps of baby animals in the zoo, and they let you look at them all, even some in incubators I couldnt photograph properly.
Its quite a hike to the top of the zoo, and no one else seems to come up this way, theres a few abandoned areas near the top, and a lone wolf I forgot to photograph.
These are baby tigers, as small as a regular kitten. That one climbing the fence almost got over about 10x whilst I watched.
Slightly larger baby tigers, I thought they might have been dead for a while, but I was joined by a Korean family who were happy to bash on the glass with great ferocity.
They have a few different kinds of bears, some were hiding, some were having their bile drained.
These cougars were playing about just like normal cats.
Tiger drinking from a pond
Clear shot of a tiger, there were also elephants but they were a long way off for some reason, perhaps they move them into another area later in the day?
I stopped for a snack from family mart, tim tams. Made in Indonesia and nothing like Australian tim tams at all, there was no cream layer and the biscuit part was a regular malt biscuit.
Entrance to the zoo gets you a ride on one segment of the cable car (but not both, and buying the extra segment is $10, remember entry was $3).
Getting on it was a bit of a challenge, I dont know how old people would manage.
There will now be shots of the cable car, the net below looked enticing for a snooze.
Looking down on the zoo.
Last shot from the cable car, ride lasts for maybe 15 minutes.
Theres the other segment of the cable car ride, goes about another 10 minutes, it seems most people paid the extra, I was happy enough to walk.
Hobby world, seemed to be shut, a tribute to transformers. Koreans love Gundam much like the Japanese, I suspect they hate transformers as it is inferior to Gundam!
Kraze burger! Korean up market burger chain. Expensive meal cost $8 for the 2 burgers and a drink. Its all made fresh, takes about 15 minutes, they have signs advising you of that, and the chef put some real effort into making them.
I must admit, it was pretty nice. The photo makes them look huge but they were quite small. You can get 1 regular size burger or 2 small ones for the same price.
There are also signs in English everywhere explaining how healthy their burgers are...I dont know about that. Not sure when bread, cheese and bacon became healthy.
Last pic for the day, doing my washing. All praise a hotel with excellent free wifi and a laundry room with a big screen tv and vending machine.
Also, the detergent cost 50 cents, the washing machine cost $1 and the dryer cost 50 cents. So all up, $2. In London I paid 9 pounds to sit on the cold floor and fight with people to get a machine.
For two reasons, I didnt do much tonight.
1. I plan to climb a mountain tomorrow, researching is confusing, some people say its a near death experience and they turned around less than half way up. Others say its ridiculously easy and only takes 3 hours for a round trip.
2. Lots of stuff is shut for Chuseok, including most restaurants. The places that are open are mainly chain stores. All the little market stalls are closed. The place I wanted to have dinner is closed, yet theres literally a million people wandering around outside looking for something to do.
This kitten just sat and watched people go by.
It is slightly amusing seeing a little girl in traditional costume playing a nintendo ds.
The army of people that keep the streets spotless have the day off. This is dramatic, there are huge piles of rubbish everywhere. If they arent back at work tomorrow (its actually a 3 day holiday, but today is the main day) then there will start to be health issues as there are massive piles of food outside restaurants.
Welcome to Seoul, drowning in a sea of detritus.
As I had 2 hamburgers for lunch, dinner was from smoothie king. I have no idea where this brand originates from, but they have lots of giant stores. The menu is very healthy, with a big smoothie not even having 200 calories.
It cant be a direct copy of a USA menu if it is a USA chain, as my smoothie contained soy protein, fructose syrup and ginseng, along with strawberries, bananas and low fat yoghurt, and that wrap thing had kim chi in it.
Update - it is a USA franchise.