Seoul Street Scenes (July 27 - 30)

I spent the last few days of my trip in Seoul. I visited a couple of huge palaces (next blog entry) and wandered around the streets - plenty of interesting things to see!!

One of the most striking things about Korean big cities (Seoul and Busan at least) is the love of identical high rise buildings. I don't really get it, because no attempt is made to make the buildings attractive in any way. They just seem to construct a bunch of the exact same building, and then paint a huge number on the side of the building for identification.

For some reason, I became obsessed with taking photos of the large TV screens on top of buildings.

A senior citizen percussion group. I think most of the group has already experienced some serious hearing loss because it was more cacophony than music. But good for them to try a new hobby and keep busy (and block traffic)!

Cheonggye Stream was a nice example of a linear park in a huge downtown. It was very busy with kids playing in the streams and running back and forth across the stone bridges.

As dusk fell, stalls selling street food appeared. I don't know what much of it is (nor did I try any of it) but there were definitely some squid and octopus bits for sale.

This cool street had a piano sidewalk. It didn't play music when you walked on it though.

A couple of old men playing go (or maybe it's some other game?).

Shopping Bag in box-like form

Seems Seoul has the same parking problems that Japan has. The blue disk on the ground is for rotating the cars around, so the driver doesn't have to do a 16 point turn.

This restaurant's name amused me

Kids playing in a water fountain - it was so hot, I kinda wanted to join them

If only I needed some tape...

Ginseng for sale ...

and spicy red pepper

The Great South Gate of Seoul that burned down in February of this year. It's currently being rebuilt.

Interesting men and women bathroom signs

Wine-Ade. How could I resist??

More photos of Seoul