25 November 2022
From the forest to the underground
Seoul forest park
Rest day today despite the glorious weather.
I wanted to go for a decent walk, this is hard when walking on streets in Korea, because the crossings take about 20 minutes to turn into a green man and you will be shot for jay walking. Really, it is extraordinary how long you will need to wait to cross a road. Every intersection seems to have a green arrow for each direction as well as the green light to go straight ahead, so instead of waiting for 1 light cycle like you would in Australia, you have to wait for 3. And the 3 are really long. And no one knows what I am going on about. So a park is a good idea.
The Seoul forest park was opened in 2008 by Chinese Communist Party chairman at the time, Hu Jintao. I am not making that up!
It is actually 4 parks, that have taken over some ruins and surround the sewage treatment plant. It is nice enough, but a lot of it was dead at this time of year, and some entire areas like the butterfly house and insect house are closed until January.
After my park, I plotted a long walk, all underground, along Korea's longest underground walkway that spans 5 stations. An easy way to get an extra 7,000 steps.
Getting to the park was along the elevated line 2. Well, elevated where you get off anyway. Quite near the Konkuk university where I went early on during this trip.
This sign confirmed I was in the right place, I was confused because it looked like a sewage treatment plant.
Unusually, parts of the park are sunken into the foundations of various ruined buildings.
Nice weather today, to enjoy some largely leafless trees and dead leaves.
There is an area with deer to throw stuff at from an overhead bridge. You cannot walk among the deer like in Nara or Miyajima in Japan. Birds ride around on the back of deer. I had no zoom, this is the best I could do.
Possibly a sewage treatment pond.
This bridge out of the park faces an area of Seoul I am not familiar with. Smaller places on the side of a hill.
The special wheat area of the park. Every park has such an area. There was also a bamboo area of course.
Impressively vertical thin trees.
I am standing under the pine planted by Hu Jintao to take this pic of a solitary pine in a field of dead grass.
Skateboarding is very popular in Korea.
Next up, I wanted to go visit a special shopping area constructed out of shipping containers, which is called common ground. This is an impostor! It is also made of shipping containers but is not common ground.
These tree stumps take the coming threat of winter very seriously.
Here is common ground. I read this is the largest shopping complex made out of shipping containers... in the world! But this is pretty much the whole thing?
The upper levels are all little restaurants and bars. Nice enough spot, but I feel as though given a week I could construct a larger one myself.
WHAT??? A challenger to Abiko curry has appeared. I thought about having it for lunch, but alas, did not. A true coco vs abiko comparison battle is unlikely to eventuate.
One thing you often see in Korea is porridge stores. I had it once years ago, it was quite bland... like porridge! The risotto fusion thing I had the other night is inspired by this, but adds flavour.
Now to start the underground journey from Dongdaemun station to City Hall station (where my hotel is). Someone else who did this measured it as 5.04km... To aide my mother who cares about such things, this is the distance from your house, to the casino, walking along Payneham road. The first area by Dongdaemun which used to be a sporting stadium, is predictably, a mile of sporting good shops.
Sometimes there are areas of no mans land, or art installations.
Sometimes they put some tools on display with safety vests in case you are working underground and need them.
Areas are quite busy, with many side tunnels that join on to other subway lines full of grids of shops, if that is your thing. The good part is you never cross a road, so it is very fast. Of course not as fast as riding the subway just below your feet who's path you are following.
Near the end, the unwise installation of piano key stairs that play the note you step on. Me like I suspect everyone else, tried to play a tune by leaping 5 or 6 steps at a time. It was hard work but I managed to crank out twinkle twinkle. OK that's enough pics for now.