lost or what?

Selfie sticks are peaking, with dedicated stores, and new functions for the new season. Selfie Stick 2.0 is here.
Auto levelling, bluetooth, motorised swivel, count down timer with light, glow in the dark, change color with mood.

The first of many gates and whatever today. This is the Seoul city gate, at the start of the main boulevarde that leads up to the main palace.

This is city hall. It is stupidly large. I have seen all kinds of crap parking over pedestrian crossings, on the footpath, you name it, and I have seen people giving out fines. Therefore my assumption is that city hall is this big to accommodate all the people paying fines for their crap parking.

This is another, larger protest, for the Sewol ferry disaster that has implicated lots of corrupt government officials. Theres lots of photos of the dead children.
I recently saw a photo of the graduating class of the school they were from, theres like 20 kids left, and 200 picture frames of those who died.
Actually 295 people died, then some teachers suicided, then some divers pulling bodies out died, then the owner of the ferry company was found dead. He was also the head of a catholic doomsday cult, the same cult has / had / secretly has various Korean government officials as its members.

This is a statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, often referred to as the greatest navy commander of all time. He bravely fought the Japanese on numerous occasions, including turning back a fleet of 133 ships with only 13 of his own, after sinking 30.
His famous last words were 'The battle is at its height...beat my war drums...do not announce my death'.

And heres the entry to the main palace in Seoul. I went here last time, so not bothering today. I do recall last time it was raining, and I caught the subway there, and I had no real understanding of where it was located compared to the rest of the city.
Walking everywhere has its benefits, most places become smaller as a result.

Instead of going to the palace, I went through a freeway tunnel, it got very narrow. I didnt really like it that much, so I jogged!

Safely through the tunnel without getting wedged or squashed by an out of control Hyundai, I found myself at the 1945 independence monument. Japan really lost a lot as a result of deciding to join the 2nd world war out of stupidity.

And now I am at the jail.

And I have entered the matrix, a matrix of dead women who lead the resistance movement. The jail was for both men and women, but the women who died are much better documented.

Me with a heap of dead Korean women.

In comparison, heres one of the rooms full of pictures of dead men. They dont have pictures of most though.

One of the torture techniques, they would put you in this and push you down the stairs.
There were all the usual torture methods too of course, however one in particular was quite creative.
For important dissidents who needed to be made an example of, they would 'plane' you. Which involved being taken up in a plane, having your hands and feet bound, then tied to either end of the plane, you would be pushed out, and hang below the plane.
A heap of Japanese soldier and VIP's would then gather at a nice long flat bit of land nearby, or perhaps the airport, and watch as the plane flew low and dragged you along the ground.
Presumably they would take some prisoners to watch this too, hoping to get them to talk.

Korean children enjoyed it like a fun fair. Actually so did Japanese tourists and their children, there were a few there. Unlike Nanjing, here they seem to be free to roam without security.

Now for a bit more fun, I am standing on an elevated viewing platform. Down each one of these aisles, would be a prisoner, each would be executed in a thrilling different manner, for the entertainment of the persons on the elevated platform.
Often they would get to pick which method for each death. Obviously there was decapitation, shot, but also one of those machines that fires 50 arrows at once, set on fire after having petrol poured over you, or just beaten to death with a stick.

Much of the prison is actually gone, but they have kept some of it in its original form.
There are still people alive who were here in 1945, many have identified their cells, and strangely, when they die they have been putting a big mural outside their cell, including a cast of their feet taken after they die? 90 Year old feet in bronze.

Nice brick buildings, there were areas they would not let you photograph too, and they were serious about it.
Especially the mass hanging room, inside the lepers pavillion, and the corpse chute that they would send dead bodies down. I cant really work out why those things werent to be photographed, perhaps because Korea used them as well as Japan.

Now its time for Korea to get revenge. Many years ago, the majority of guitars were made in Japan. Now its Korea. This is the Nakwon music arcade and its huge.
There are regular stores, and mall kiosks like these, as far as they eye can see.
Taking photos was a bit tricky as pushy salesman accompanied me everywhere.

There are 3 levels, each square is a shop. I couldnt walk past them all in an hour.

Its not just guitars, theres recording gear, synths, drums, saxaphones. This store had all kinds of apogee and euphonix gear.

The upper levels are recording studios and rehearsal spaces, but they seemed to be empty on Saturday. A bunch of old men have decided to make the roof top stage there own.

The reason became clear, theres also an old time cinema up here, with western style movie dinner and dancing. Tonight I could go see Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc.

Back down again, and perhaps the best bit of the music arcade was there is also a lot of secondhand stuff. In my opinion, secondhand guitars are better than new ones, they dont go out of date, and if they are still structurally sound after a couple of years they will remain so forever.

Nearby is a genuine ancient pagoda. So genuine that it needs to be in a giant glass case. Most genuine things in Asia are genuine re creations.

Time to admire the impressive skyline. The pollution haze detracts from nature, but it often adds to photos such as this.
The buildig in the foreground is a stupid design, theres no guts to it, must be on government land and public money.

I also walked along this open sewer last time I was here. It is a major feature of Seoul and is lit up at night. It really was once a sewer but they cleaned it up and turned it into an URBAN STREAM SANCTUARY.
Its very green in summer, as opposed to brown, grey and dead.

And finally, my lunch. I spent up big. Excellent tofu, with unidentifiable sea mushrooms, kelp, thinly sliced fermented acorn jelly, black rice and a soup which I think contained actual grass clippings.
And here I was suggesting all Korean food is the same.