Seoul, South Korea – 2026 – Part 1

Clint and I just got back home on the 25 June after doing a 7 1/2 week trip to South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. We left 3 May, heading first to South Korea for 12 days, Japan for 8 days and then finishing off in Indonesia for 31 days. It was a long trip and quite tiring. (Seoul is 13 hours ahead of us in Ontario). We stayed at the Prince Hotel located downtown Seoul in a very tiny room but it was clean and the location was excellent. We were there 3-4 days on our own before our tour started.

A couple of facts, South Korea occupies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and is 70% mountains. Due to this, there is a limited amount of land which is why they have so many high rises, it’s hard for me to even describe how many, but they have to build up as they can’t build out. There is approximately 52 million people in South Korea; Seoul itself has a population of approximately 10 million people, which to me, is hard to take in as we live in a huge country with lots of vacant land and our entire country has a population of only 42 million. Over there, every piece of land is buildings or fields growing something. I have to mention, they really like stuffies and cartoon characters! You’ll see…..

We walked around a lot the first day, first to the Jogyesa Temple where they were having a big ceremony, a lot monks were there and they had this little monk robot that we took videos of. It was very colourful and nice, but we didn’t go inside. They had a sign on the temple saying “Beware shoe thieves”, so we’re going to bring a bag from now on to put our shoes in when we have to take them off. I read online that the little Robot Monk was introduced the day we were there, he is 130-centimeter-tall wearing traditional brown robes and given a rosary. His name is Gabi which translates to Mercy in Korean. This initiative is to, hopefully, appeal to younger generations and revitalize faith. Gabi took his vows and will be used to explain Buddhist teachings, participate in festivals and answer visitor questions.

Here are a few more photos from “our neighbourhood” with a few blocks of our hotel. We loved walking around and seeing all the different sites. I have to mention, although you will suspect after looking at the photos, they love their cats and dogs but mostly cats…..

It’s a beautiful city and there’s lots to see. The weather was great, usually about 21 Celsius and sunny.

I have more to share so stay tuned !