So far South Korea has been surprising, but in a good way. I like the city and there are plenty of nice things to see and do, most of them are free as well!

After some delay yesterday due to the heavy smog in Jinan, I left China and I started my trip through east Asia. Seoul in South Korea is my first stop. After arrival yesterday I went to the hostel and that looks like a really nice place to staynwith people from all over the world. I'm in a room with six other people and in total there are 24 people staying there. It is a cheap place and it is located in one of the centers of Seoul, the location is therefore perfect and right next to a subway station. Last evening I was just walking around this center and I was surprised by the amount of people there, all the lights and how modern it is. It is completely the opposite of China and it looks very beautiful at night. And as they say in Chinese 人山人海 (rén shān rén hǎi) "people mountain people sea", which means that there are many people in one place.

Today I went to the actual city center and I started with the square in the city where they have the protests against the government. On the square were two statues of a king and an admiral who fought against the Japanese and won by applying a different stragegy than usual. Under the square was a museum with a free 3D movie about the lives. The museum wasn't too interesting but the movie was fun.

I continued my tour throught the city center and went past the palace, which was closed to the public, several gardens in the city, the huge city hall with world's largest vertical garden and then I went for a long walk uphill to the N tower, which is located up the hill. From up there the view of the city was amazing. I didn't go up the tower though because the line was very long and the view was already very nice from here. Some part of the old Seoul city wall was also built on this hill.

I've also been surprised about the level of English in Korea, so far people that I talked to spoke very good English. That's very convenient for traveling and shopping. On my way back I went past one of that gates of the city wall and are fried dumplings. They were very big and very tasty, and only 3000 Korean Won. It is divided by 1250 to get euros. So this dish was about 2,4 euros.

The photo is taken near a river which streams through the city and it located about 3 meters below the road. I walked along this river for about 2 km, away from the center.