20 April 2026
Mexican Buddha library
Starfield COEX mall
Tonight I went and saw another Buddha, surrounded by plastic lanterns, ate Koreanified Mexican food and went to the most famous bookstore in the world, all within 1 city block. Also I ran a lap of the mall, so if you think back to all my previous trips to Korea, then you know exactly where I was.
The Bongeunsa temple is right slap bang between main roads. I have been there in the day time before and walked all it's paths, tonight I just ducked in on my way to dinner. The plastic lanterns that all these temples are stringing from ugly metal poles are for Buddha's birthday, which is not until 24 May, and they have been hanging them up since before the start of April. There are over 9 million Buddhist establishments in Korea alone, to that is a huge amount of plastic that they then just burn. Cool.
After that, I crossed the road, ran a lap of the excellent mall running track, knocked over a few surprised security guards who seemingly did not understand what a running track is for, before I managed to locate a healthy post run dinner and then settled into the library to check out what cameras all the other tourists had. I love long sentences.
I walked there and back of course, at dusk. Big wide streets, nice cool weather. Blue skies have arrived again after the grey clouds earlier today.
Temple time, behold a completely plastic sky.
Everywhere you look, the sky has been replaced by colourful plastic.
They even crammed a few behind the statue.
Out the front of the compound is the Buddha's birthday nativity scene, which also has an apple tree, just like the one Jesus was born from.
COEX - which is an exhibition centre. The actual shopping mall, and casino are underneath it.
As mentioned, there is a running track throughout the entire place, and kids do tear around dangerously, they are no match for me though.
Some parts have been through 'renewal' since I was last here.
Dinner tonight was particularly healthy, no rice! Just greenery and chicken (no tofu option). Delicious actually.
Finally the library. It is a bookshop, but they let you read anything you want for as long as you want, which seems to be a trend with a few Asian bookstore brands.
It is a very well known spot, there are tourists everywhere.
Tomorrow, not a hiking day, and I plan to go to somewhere that has risen through the ranks of worlds most popular very fast in the last few years, what could it be? You will find out tomorrow.