17 April 2026
River view with no boats
Hangang park
The Han river, or Hangang if you speak Korean, is the main river that runs through Seoul. Despite repeated efforts by the government to convince people a boat ride would be fun, there still are none. No boats ever on the river. It is basically Hormuz. Perhaps they think there are still mines in it from the Korean war.. I guess it's possible.
The river is a couple of km down a hill from my hotel, and I got there and realised I had walked that section before, at sunset before. Basically I went there because I thought the sunset would be good, but the cloud that I had seen earlier out of my window (and is shown again below) basically only existed out of hotel window in the opposite direction of the river. Still, there is a sun and a river.
Before I headed out, just the clouds outside of my dirty hotel window. If I was a cloudologist I would know the name of this sort of cloud, Rhinonombulis, that will do.
I do recall walking past, but not going into this Hyundai department store in the past, so I did that again. Edge of cool clouds visible.
The river, sans cloud. Still, good light for photos.
I can walk over this bridge, not tonight.
Instead I went down to the rubbish layer.
These are not boats anymore. They may never have been actual boats, the next one as you shall see definitely is not. It is filled with restaurants and a convenience store.
A rugby field, rugby is big in Japan now so why not Korea?
This one was definitely never a boat. Like I said, they recently tried to re-launch a ferry service across the river, a bit like the star ferry in Hong Kong, but no one went on it so it closed down again.
Time to hang out under a bridge.
I skirted the edges of the colourful streets of Gangnam, I am sure they will be seen again on another night.
The nearby market is bigger than I remember, and still going into the night.
Finally, it was time for a late dinner of tofu poke bowl, with chick peas AND hummus. Delicious.
Tomorrow is a hiking day, on a Saturday, I need to pick a less busy hike.