Lunch time. From the temple we went to the Lotte World Tower and zipped up to the 81st floor for the STAY modern French restaurant. We will be going higher up the tower afterwards.
I enjoyed the appetizer. First, it was served on a bed of crushed nuts – which I found visually interesting. But then the piece in the spoon was a scoop of mango around pineapple, sprinkled with gold. After the mushroom and cheese pieces it was a big hit of sweet.
The main course was duck with orange. Yeah, it looks like a rasher of bacon, but I found it very tasty. High marks to the chef for the mix of textures.
However, what stole the show was the palate cleanser of “spoom”. I am not kidding. I had not heard the term before. The menu said “Iced grapefruit spoom, Aloe vera and vergamot olive oil”. To top if off, the black inner bowl was charred grapefruit rind. I know it sounds odd, but the entire table raved about it.
Time to go upstairs. Eventually. The elevator that brought us up 81 floors to the restaurant only goes to/from the first floor. I guess to keep the riff-raff from the rest of the building. We dropped 81 floors, shuffled over and then took the “Seoul Sky” elevator to the 117th floor. As we toured the observation decks we wandered up to the 121st floor to take the down elevator.
There was a lot of haze today, I don’t how much was natural vs man-made. The Lotte Tower is across the Han River from old Seoul
Looking closer to the tower you see all the condominiums. Yes, they look very cookie-cutter. Our guide explained how Seoul expanded across the river in the 1970s, while still very much recovering from the Korean War. The growing country needed housing fast. Even so, they still have greenery between the buildings and recreation areas.
To the east is the main grounds for the 1988 Summer Olympics. I’m kind of glad they didn’t pave it over and turned it into a factory or something. I wonder how much of the surrounding buildings existed in 1988.
I don’t know how this cruise has gotten so “tower” oriented. Maybe it’s an Asian thing. After making our way back to the bus we crossed the river and entered the older part of the city to visit the National Museum of Korea. We only had an hour to spend there, so I focused on the medieval section.
A major piece is this bronze incense burner – this is the “you can touch” version of the gold original. Incense smoke rises out of holes in the top, giving a “phoenix rising from the ashes” effect.
The “Crowns of Silla” are amazing, but due to crowds and light reflections I did not get a picture I am happy to share. Look at the wiki. You can buy a life-size replica in the museum shop for about $1000; tell them Cruiseboy sent you.
The “Phoenix Throne” is a replica of the throne used for almost 800 years by the various leaders of a unified Korea.
The last thing to grab my eye was a room divider – seems to be another theme of the cruise. This has a map of the royal castle and surrounding government buildings and houses. The divider has around 20 frames.
From here we checked into our hotel, the Lotte Hotel Seoul. Same company which owns the tower, different building. To make things easy, our dinner reservations are right here in the hotel, which our guide claims is “the most expensive restaurant in the city.” Mu Gung Hwa (yet again) has it’s own elevator from the lobby, but this time our group had it’s own room and table.
While there were many interesting tastes (I loved the blue crab dumplings), the only visually entertaining dish was the “Platter of Nine Delicacies”, with marinated meats and vegetables served with crepes. Mix and match and dip in an excellent horseradish sauce.
Last piece of what caught my eye today. The hotel has a wooden-puzzle-piece-mural. It’s hidden behind sets of escalators, so I could not get a whole picture. The sign said (after I Google translated) the piece contains multiple longevity symbols.
