19 Mar 2014 - Mt Namsan and N Seoul Tower by night

From Children's Grand Park station, we took the train to Myeongdong station.  Right outside of the station, we then took a bus up to Mt Namsan.  It was very cold up there but we had some great night view of Seoul city.

One thing that no one will miss in this vicinity is the N Seoul Tower (NTower).

Ntower's height reached 480 metres above sea level, and it is towering over the 90 square metres of spacious Namsan. So, on the Ntower you can see the foreground of Namsan and Seoul at a glance.

We were cold and hungry once we reached the bottom of the tower.  So we decided to look for an eating place for our dinner.

There were a number of restaurant, cafe and pubs around.  We went into a Korean Cafe and had a great warm dinner, away from the cold weather outside.

After dinner, we walked around the tower and saw a fence full of padlocks.  These are so called Love Padlocks made famous by MBC's "We are Married".

We were all pretty tired by this time, except for Javier.  He still ran around asking me to take picture of him.

We decided to walk one more round and have another look of Seoul city by night.

Before we walked down the hill to the bus stop, Javier performed a dance by the pavilion

This sums up day 2 of our Seoul trip.

19 Mar 2014 - Seoul Children's Museum

Located next to the Children's Grand Park is Seoul Children's Museum.  This facility is built by Seoul City Government to foster in children's imagination and creativity.  The ultimate goal is to bring greater health and happiness to children and their families.

There are a total of 4 floors in this building.  For more details of this museum, click here.

We saw a tree house with a slide the moment we entered the museum.  The Nature Play and Art Play area are just round the corner.

There is an area where Jerlene and Javier learned how to perform ribbon dance.  They were watching the TV with instructions on how to do the basic steps.

And here, my two little angels were trying to perform a puppet show for me......haha.....they had a hard time trying to hide behind the wall.

There are many areas where children have chance to build something amazing based on their imagination and creativity.

Right at the corner is an area where children got to experience how to help people with disability to cross the road, entering a turnstile etc.

Whenever there is any structure that allows children to climb, crawl, crouch etc, Jerlene and Javier will never give it a miss.

In the Space Play area, children had the opportunity to control a spaceship.

There are also a lot of cooperative and interactive games throughout the museum.

At the Water Play area, children were provided with a vest so that their own clothes do not get wet while playing.

It seems fun and we spent quite a while playing in this corner.

Next we walked to Culture Play area.  Here the children can try out traditional costumes from different countries.

Other than trying out the costumes, Jerlene also performed cat walk on a fashion show stage.

Javier had refused to put no the costumes so we moved on to the next area, where Jerlene and Javier tried to be a veterinarian (or in short, vet).

Half an hour before the museum closed, we approached the last play area where there is a mini maze.

Round the corner is a fun play area where children place a silk cloth into a tube with suction and the cloth will shot out of the tube right at the top.  Javier tried something "cheeky" as he placed multiple cloths into the tube and all of them shot out at once.

Before we left the museum, Jerlene and Javier each took a picture of themselves.  Their photos appeared on a big screen.  Can you locate them?

We really played till the museum closed at 6pm.

19 Mar 2014 - Children's Grand Park

After our lunch, we took line 2 subway from Sindorim station down one station and transfer to line 7 which brought us all the way to Children's Grand Park station.  So yes, our next destination is Children's Grand Park.  The moment we stepped out of the train, we starting seeing cute posters, paintings etc all around the station.  Jerlene and Javier getting excited after seeing these wall paper.

Situated in Seoul City’s Gwangjin-gu, Children’s Grand Park covers 530,000 square meters and is an ultimate leisure facility for families, offering a zoo, botanical garden, amusement facilities, and diverse performance events.  This is the main entrance to the park.  By the way, admission is free.

Once we entered the park, we were greeted by sculptures of Snow White and the Seven Little Dwarves.

We then walked through an area with structures of ancient Korea.

To me, these are the scenes that appeared in those Korean drama such as Dae Jang Geum (大長今). 

Next we came to a huge playground and my two little angels went wild.

We spent quite sometimes here before moving on to the next area of the park.

There is supposed to be a zoo within this park but it was closed during this period due to prevention of AI, which I believe means Avian Influenza.

Fortunately, the Marine Animal House is still opened and it showcases Polar Bears and various species of Seals.

Next, we proceed to the Botanical Gardens, which exhibits 5,000+ plants, representing 400+ species.

I especially like this Japanese style garden.

From the Botanical Garden, we slowly walked back to the park entrance.  On our way, we stopped by the playground AGAIN and you know I had no choice.........  I then told them I'm going to bring them to another children's attraction before they reluctantly left the playground.

I am not lying to them, I am really going to bring them to somewhere that they will enjoy.  Stay tuned to my next post.  :-)