6 November 2022
A different way down
The usual view from Namsan but down the other side
By now it is a well established tradition that every time I come to Seoul I take a trot up Namsan, look at the very phallic Seoul tower, take a few pics of the view and make fun of people who took the cable car. Usually I take a photo of me standing next to a big duck where all the padlocks are.. but I skipped that part of the tradition, who knows perhaps I will take that shot when I return to Seoul at the end of this trip.
Normally I go up and down the same way, but this time I was determined to go down the other side, even though that leads to Itaewon where the Halloween crush was, and I am avoiding that place.
I should mention, apparently there was a protest last night at City Hall demanding the President resign over the Halloween tragedy, but I do not know what it actually has to do with him, there was another protest more generally elsewhere demanding the president resign about other things too. Every former Korean president has ended up in Jail, so he can look forward to jail, soon.
I got sidetracked, but the Halloween protest last night apparently had 100,000 people crammed in protesting. I remember thinking surely that would not happen despite Koreans loving a mass protest, but evidently, it happened. It seems a bit like lighting a big fire to protest a fire, but maybe I am underthinking it.
Back to the task at hand, I found my way down the other side, avoided the part of Itaewon where the tragedy occurred, and hopped on a train back to what appeared to be a very revitalised and bustling Myeongdong before carb loading ahead of a planned long hike tomorrow.
A familiar site.
I deviated from my normal way to the start of the steps, and discovered there are quite a few nice little shops and restaurants on the side of the hill.
Colourful leaves and 2 x cable cars, oh my.
It was actually quite dark here, but I pushed the exposure a bit.
Apparently the embattled president lives somewhere in view of the tower and you are no longer allowed to take photos in a certain direction? This used to be the case where the wall up the hill is over looking the blue house behind the main palace, but for whatever reason the current president does not live in the blue house.
Good view at dusk from part way up.
It was probably darker than this in reality.
Too dark by now. All photos tonight were taken hand held, generally at 1/10 or so.
I had to find my way down this side. I did not know for sure it was possible.
Phallic. I say it every time. Plus I like the word phallic, we should all aim to use it a lot more.
All these lazy people are waiting near the top for a bus. It is a ten minute walk downhill to the train from here. This is shocking to me.
I found my well lit but lonely path down.
This lonely path came out in the hills above Itaewon, a kind of a village area, not yet too ex-paty.
But soon enough, you clearly start to get into areas for white folks. Cheese.
I mentioned above, Myeongdong seems to be popular again, with lots of street traders with their carts and lots of people. For some reason I did not take a photo though, so instead here is some neon in a relatively quiet street near my hotel.
And finally, pasta. Not as Asian as some Asian pasta, but still a bit different. The beef is thinly sliced like you would grill at a Korean BBQ for example.
As mentioned in the block of text above, tomorrow is a hiking day, aka day of boring photos.