Lotte World Tower & Seoul Sky

Full transcript

Annyeong, yeoreobun! Yul here, and my neck already hurts. Look up. That shining glass needle is Lotte World Tower, 555 meters tall, with 123 floors above the ground. It's the tallest building in Korea, and one of the tallest in the whole world!

It opened to the public on April 3, 2017, and it was the first building in Korea with more than 100 floors. Construction began in 2010, so it took about seven years to reach the sky.

So why does it look like this? The smooth, pale, curving shape takes inspiration from traditional Korean ceramics, the elegant pottery of old Korea.

Now, the scary part. At the very top is the observatory, Seoul Sky, on the top seven levels, from floor 117 to 123. On floor 118 there's a glass floor. You step on it, look down, and there's nothing but air between you and the city, hundreds of meters below. When the tower opened, it was the highest glass-floor observatory in the world.

And here's a wild twist. In 2023, a man actually tried to climb the outside of this tower with no ropes, and police stopped him around the 73rd floor. Take the elevator, like a normal idol.

Yul's tip! Go up just before sunset, so you see Seoul in daylight and then as a sea of lights. Afterwards, walk around Seokchon Lake at the foot of the tower, which is especially pretty in cherry blossom season.

Next, let's visit a building that looks like a spaceship landed in the middle of Seoul. Kaja!