Sightseeing in Seoul city

Today we were going to Seoul for some sightseeing, the actual center of Seoul. We get in the car, run 10-15 red lights and head for the freeway. There are numerous toll booths along the freeway where we have to pay toll. I am told it is a widely used scheme and the prices go down as the roads are paid off. For example the airport was only built a few years back and the roads and bridges connecting to the airport has a quite high toll price. Some of the toll roads we encountered the amount paid was only 25 cents, not too bad.We drove and drove supposedly getting close and closer to Seoul city. I am wondering, because the only thing I see is farming on both sides of the freeway. We enter a tunnel through a mountain ridge and after a few minutes we get out of the tunnel and find ourselves in the middle of a busy part of Seoul, with sky scrapers and blinking lights everywhere.
We continue through Gangnam, a very expensive area in Seoul, which has gotten a lot of publicity from the Korean rapper Psy.
Apparently the people in the area are so well off kind of by accident, as the real estate prices sky rocketed many years back, transforming the entire area into new rich people. At least those who owned and rented out property.
Money is good, but only if you have some, right? A lot of people didn't and suddenly couldn't afford to put their kids to the good schools in the area, leaving well off kids with an unfair advantage through life.
We took the car into the old area of Seoul, that had some authentic building from a long time ago. We walked around a little bit to check out the area, just to discover that the actually buildings were closed this day. Of course...
We got back to the car, found a parking garage for it and I noticed a sign saing female friendly parking.
Seems like single female drivers get prioritized to get parking lots on the more secure ground floor level with security present. I have never seen that before, but a nice thing to see.
We then ventured out into Seoul city on foot and taxi. I think we stopped at around 10 different food snack places during the day, tasting almost anything they had to offer. Traditional foods like rice sausages with fish cakes in spicy sauce? Considering how little seafood is consumed in Denmark, it is quite interesting how much is eaten here.
I guess everyone has some kind of opinion or idea about what Korea is like, not having been there themselves. Of course I had too, but it has changed over the last couple of years.
When I was a kid, made in Japan meant quality, made in Korea meant bad quality and cheap copies. Now everyone knows Samsung, LG, Kia and Hyundai. Count how many people have a Samsung LCD TV on their wall at home, a Samsung or LG phone in their pocket? While it seems Kia and Hyundai have a little traction problem getting into the market of selling cars, they offer better warranty than any other brand and today considered best value for money by many.
How does this affect the people, the city etc? I have been to China and Japan, and somehow expected it to be a mixture of both, maybe leaning a little towards the Chinese side.
I wouldn't say I was far off, but still surprised to some extend. Walking down the main street of Seoul, it looks like some street in a shopping area of Paris. Some of the smaller alleys had some "authentic" restaurants hidden away with small gardens and just very cozy environment.
We went to a restaurant for lunch, we came in a few minutes before 2 in the afternoon, said down and looked at the menu. By the time the waitress came to our table, the time had passed 2 and so the lunch options were not available anymore.
Everything was computerized so that it automatically removed the lunch items... The guys then called over the manager and had him take a look at me - I wasn't able to eat anything from the afternoon/dinner menu, I only liked the lunch menu. The manager went to the kitchen with our order, haha

After lunch, well then we had to taste more foods of course. The only break in food intake came when Hyunju was having a job interview on the phone with some company in the US. An hour later we were tasting even more foods, mixed with a little rice wine...
The evening ended at a place serving really good Korean BBQ. For those people never having tasted this before, you have no idea what you are missing out on. BBQ is not just BBQ, this is sophisticated tastes mixed together.
My latest favorite is taking a sesame leaf, add a slice of beef into it, a BBQ'ed garlic, chili paste, one or two slices of Korean chili, soooo delicious.
After dinner we took a little walk around the area before we ended up in a friend of Doctor Kim's sushi restaurant. There we had a little more food, but I had to tell now that I had been eating like a pig all day long, now I was full. Still they ordered more food, and of course I had to taste it all.
It was really good stuff, even though I was full and it was past midnight. The restaurant closed and the other guests were guided out, we were now the only ones there. The owner pulled out a special Sake I had to taste. Wow, it was so smooth and sweet, a little bit like white wine, but not so dry. After a couple of more sake and beers, it was time to go home.
Instead of taking a taxi, you hire a driver to drive to drive your car home for you. You call them, they come and drop off a driver, they drive you home and they pick up their driver again. A big network all over Seoul ensures this is a viable business. The driver is not going to spend more than a few minutes waiting for his pickup. Interesting...
Of course Yumi and Hyunju had to get a burger for the ride home as they were still hungry! I do not understand it...