Siteseeing, siteseeing, siteseeing...

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The last couple of days have been pretty intense with lots of the siteseeing. Seoul has a few palaces that they have rebuilt in the last couple of decades. There wasn't much left of historic nature after the Japanese and North Koreans finished with the city. This reminds me of the palaces in Hue, Vietnam, which were destroyed during the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese are also rebuilding those). I have seen enough palaces, though, for one trip, as they all start to look the same after awhile.

It would be interesting to see how Seoul compares to the other mega cities from a land mass persepctive. This city just is huge. Thank god they have such a good subway system. Talking about subway, I'm not sure who came up with decorating scheme for the stations, but they are not particularly attractive woth their soft pastel colours and horrible looking tiles on the floor. The tiles are all dirty, stained and the grout looks disgusting.

While I mentioned in an earlier post how technologically advanced the Koreans appeared to by with their advanced cellphones, I haven't seen anyone with a bluetooth headset...

There are a lot of police protecting sensitive establishments like the US embassay and stock exchange. I'm talking about a whole bus load of police officers ready for a riot! It was interesting. I was walking down a main one street (the Champ Elysees of Seoul) and all of a sudden I started seeing more and more police officers with these large batons. I thought... I bet the US embassay is around here somewhere and sure enough it was. Oh to be a US citizen travelling abroad these days...

Internet cafes have been fairly ubiquitous, but they are usually hidden on upper floors of buidlings. Most of the people in them are young males playing video games. I also noticed that the the elevators don't have a number four one them... I'm not sure what gives, but it probably their unlucky number.

I have been trying to jog every couple of days with limited success. The sidewalks are full of people and the many of the major intersections require you to go down then up through an underground pedway. I did find a nice river through the center of the city on Sunday that had been turned into a park. The park goes uninterrupted for about 7 kms. One thing Seoul is missing are parks though.

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Photos

Streetscape
This will stop you to take a second look...