Seoul, South Korea - Namsan Mountain - Cable car and padlocks

After our lovely Abalone porridge, we had a walk around the area which seemed to be a very business oriented area although I suspect that might be true for a lot of Seoul.

Nik used one of his trusty apps to figure out the best thing to do next.  We found we were near Namsan Mountain where the N Seoul Tower is so decided to walk up to the cable car to see the tower.

It was 8,000 Won for a round trip ticket (about £5) but you could buy a single trip and walk back down.

At the top we found a beautifully decorated pagoda...

The tree shadows made lovely patterns on the ground...

Mount Namsan is one of the places in the world where it's a custom to place a 'love lock'.  The idea is to write a message on your lock and secure it to the fence and throw the key over the edge (which they discourage due to the risk of hitting someone I guess!) and your love will stay locked forever.  Of course we wanted to add our own lock and they (of course!) had a shop selling locks.  What I loved was that they had all kinds of colours, including olive green!

There were padlock trees...

And the fences were no longer visible due to the density of the locks placed over the years!

 Some of the old, rusty ones were still visible between the newer, bright coloured ones...

The back of one of the fences with locks overflowing!

As our lock had a coloured cover, we removed it to write a message on the metal lock (which would obviously last longer as the cover could slip off) - Nik wrote this one and we put our wedding date on it.  I wrote on the cover with the date we were there.

We chose a more secluded, rusty spot for ours and attached it to an old looking lock.

It was easier to attach without the cover on and we then slipped the cover over but then decided it wouldn't stay on long as it slipped off so easily so we took it as a souvenir, leaving just the lock.  Since we couldn't throw the key away, I've attached it to my keyring to carry it with me.

We then posed in one of the love benches which are made to slide to closer to your love in the middle.

We weren't the only ones having a romantic moment.

We had a quick wander around the tower but decided not to go up it as the view was amazing enough from where we were.  The photos aren't great as it was such a bright sunny day but you can see how massive the city is and how built up it is.