We’re in Korea.
Pokin had just wrapped up her forum in Seoul, and Nicholas flew in to meet her. With fresh stitches in his knee. From a bunny slope. You may recall.
Our base was The PLAZA Seoul, which sounds fancy because it is. From there, the plan was simple: walk up to Namsan Tower, take in the views, explore the city.
Walk. With the guy who just had his knee reassembled by a Utah emergency room two weeks ago.
Up the trail we went. Nicholas hobbling like a man with a peg leg, refusing to acknowledge that any of this was a problem. The trail up Namsan is pretty. Brick paths, bare trees, spring just starting to show up. But it’s also uphill, which is not ideal when one of your legs is held together by medical thread.
The view from up there, though. I’ll give Seoul that. The whole city just spreads out in every direction with mountains behind it. You can see why people climb up here.
Made it to the top. N Seoul Tower. Big tower. I’ve seen towers. This one’s got a good location, I’ll say that.
Now. Here’s where the day got interesting.
A friend of ours had heard about this pizza place, Spacca Napoli, supposedly the best pizza in Seoul. Pokin had the bright idea that we should walk there from the tower. More walking. For the man with the peg leg.
We thought it’d be a quick jaunt.
It wasn’t.
We wound through these steep hillside neighborhoods, down narrow streets, past tiny shops. Seoul is a city that was apparently designed by someone who had never heard of level ground. Every block is either straight up or straight down. Nicholas’s knee had opinions about all of it.
We got to Spacca Napoli at 2:58.
It was closed until dinner service.
So we had to kill two hours. More walking. We popped into some Pop Mart stores to look for Labubus. No luck. Nicholas’s knee was filing a formal complaint.
We got back to the pizza place at 4:30. Line out the door. Forty-minute wait.
Our friend was thrilled. I felt about the same.
One thing worth mentioning about Seoul: Google Maps doesn’t work here. Not properly. South Korea restricts mapping data because they’re technically still at war with North Korea, and the border is right there. So you have to download Naver, the Korean navigation app, to actually figure out where you’re going. Google will show you streets but it won’t give you directions. We learned this the hard way. Several times.
Eventually we got pizza.
It was good. Proper Neapolitan. Puffy charred crust, fresh mozzarella, basil, the works.
Was it worth walking what felt like the entire city of Seoul on a stitched-up knee to eat at a pizza place that was closed, then waiting in line for forty minutes?
I’ll let Nicholas’s knee answer that one.