Seoul City Wall Stamp Tour

created: 2023.10.04. 06:32 · modified: 2023.10.05. 10:46 ·  · license

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I walked the entire Seoul City Wall in a day.

It all started when a friend posted on Instagram that they’d completed the circuit. My heart raced as soon as I saw it. As a Seoulite, I couldn’t not do it. The weather was good, and I wanted to go right away, so I found someone to join me. Five days later—yesterday—I completed it.

A few friends were interested, but most couldn’t come because our schedules didn’t line up or they weren’t confident they could do the whole circuit in one go. That left one friend. But even they dropped out about halfway through. I understand—they had to leave for work early this morning. I hope you get to finish the rest when you have time.

So I walked the remaining half alone. I set off from Sungnyemun Gate at 9 a.m. and went clockwise. I forgot to get my stamp at the Donuimun site, though, so I paid the price for my mistake by doing the Sungnyemun–Donuimun stretch twice. That meant I finally finished at Donuimun.

At first, I’d planned to start at Sungnyemun and go counterclockwise. I’d be taking photos toward the city center, so passing Heunginjimun in the morning and Donuimun in the afternoon would keep me from shooting into the sun. But I decided it would be better to tackle the steepest stretch, between Inwangsan and Baegaksan, early on, and changed my plan to clockwise. In hindsight, that was a sensible choice. Another bonus was getting to look out from Namsan near the end of the journey and see both the route I’d traveled and the northern half of Seoul it encircles. Since the place to pick up your completion badge is at the Donuimun site, I’d also recommend starting there and going counterclockwise.

Pick up a map at one of the stamp stations at the four main gates (or, for Sukjeongmun, at the nearby Malbawi Information Center), collect all the stamps, and show proof photos taken at four spots—Inwangsan, Baegaksan (Cheongundae), Naksan, and Namsan (the beacon mound)—and you’re done. At Donuimun Museum Village, they gave me the badge after looking at just the map. I’m going to the Hanyangdoseong Historic Site Museum tomorrow to get my certificate, so I imagine they’ll check the photos there.

I walked for eight hours and over 40,000 steps that day, and climbed the equivalent of nearly 300 floors. I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve passed 40,000 steps. Luckily, aside from some tightness in my calves, I don’t have any other symptoms today.

How do I feel about it? Incredibly accomplished! I feel like I’ve finally become a true Seoulite. There’s the physical achievement, of course, but I’m also delighted to know the city I live in better. Knowing an area’s place names and landmarks, and which way to go to reach them, gives me a quiet sense of security and satisfaction. This might sound obvious or silly, but when thoughts like

• “Ttukseom. I could take an express train to Seonjeongneung, then the Suin–Bundang Line up there. Or I’ve got plenty of time—should I just ride halfway around Line 2?”

or

• “The certificate pickup is at Namsan Park... The National Museum of Korea isn’t that far. I’ll knock out the National Gallery exhibition while I’m at it.” (That’s my plan for tomorrow.)

come together effortlessly in my head, I feel like a true Seoulite. But even though I moved here over ten years ago, I spent most of that time in a dorm or in Daejeon, so I knew surprisingly few Seoul place names for someone who’d been here that long. Since graduating and living in Seoul full-time, I’ve learned many more, but I rarely had reason to go north of the river, so much of that area was still a blur. That made this circuit of Hanyang all the more helpful. One new discovery: I’d only ever seen Jangchung Arena on Infinite Challenge, but I finally walked right past it. Now I can enjoy the telepathy special even more!

Of course, I’d already been to some of the places I passed. In fact, I’d been to most of them. But I got to see them from an entirely new perspective. I’d visited Inwangsan, Namsan, and Naksan before, and the walls there are still plainly intact. Yet I’d mostly seen them as just walls, not as fortifications. This was the first time I’d really thought of them as parts of one enormous wall encircling Hanyang. A surprising amount of the Seoul City Wall remains in the built-up parts of the city, too. Even on a bridge over Cheonggyecheon, the railings where it intersects the wall are made to look like ramparts. Lately I’ve been discovering north of the river the beauty of an old city center that European cities so often have and Gangnam doesn’t. Now I feel like I’ve found one more reason for it.

It was dizzying to think that people built something this long when all they had to power the work was human and animal strength. My respects to those who were conscripted to build the Seoul City Wall...

While talking with my parents over dinner about this kind of grueling adventure, I learned that my dad had once planned to cross the Nakdong River on a raft he built himself in college. He said he never actually did it, so I asked if he’d like to try it with me now. He just laughed... but I wasn’t joking. His own experience cycling around Jeju Island at about the same age also played a part in my decision to do the same thing, which I followed through on the year before last. Looks like going out of our way to make life hard for ourselves runs from father to son.

From here on, it’s just a photo dump.

When I reached Cheonggye Plaza after finishing, I saw a group of people standing around in hanbok. I looked it up and found out it was Gohanora, an annual festival organized by Sungkyunkwan University that carries on the Joseon-era tradition of Sungkyunkwan students submitting petitions to the king. It started at 6 p.m.; I’d picked up my badge at Donuimun around 5:45 and then headed over, so I passed by almost exactly as it began.

Whether I’m traveling at home or abroad, I sometimes happen upon events that don’t even run all day. I feel lucky, but I also wonder how many festivals and events there must be for me to encounter them this often—and feel a little sad thinking that I’m probably missing most of them.

This is related, though a bit of a tangent: have you ever learned a new fact or studied an English word, only to come across it again in everyday life just hours later? It’s happened to me many times, and at first I found the coincidence amazing. But now it just scares me to think it isn’t a coincidence at all: an absurd amount of information passes by me every day, and I miss 99% of it because I don’t know enough to notice.

Dinner was a handmade burger. A friend took me to Bas Burger once, and it instantly shot to the top of my burger list. They had a triple-patty option, which I’d never seen before, and I lost all self-control and ordered it. Each extra patty costs the same 3,500 won, but going from double to triple doesn’t seem to deliver quite the same Δdelight as going from single to double.

Bas Burger’s greatest strength is its onions. I don’t usually like onions all that much, but the fresh raw onions here blow me away every time. If you go to Bas Burger, make absolutely sure—times ten—to add the free raw onions.

The bottomless potato chips dipped in mayonnaise are delicious, too.

It was also my first time seeing the news studio right next to Cheonggye Plaza ON AIR! They moved the camera back and forth to shoot from different angles.

The funny thing is, behind the female anchor, they display the reporter and topic of the next story, like “Jeong Yun-cheol / Sports.” One of the stories was about capturing a wild boar, right? But for that one, they didn’t put up “Lee Kun-hee / Wild Boar.” Hahaha.

Certificate collected. The pink circle at the bottom is the badge you get for finishing in the fourth quarter of the year. The badge is a different color each quarter, and apparently you get a metal badge if you collect all four. Naturally, my next goal is to complete the circuit in a different quarter with many more friends—or in much less time.