Korea twice in one year - November 2022 - Page 2

I did not need to go to a bank, but when the fine people at Kookmin bank provide a crashed plane at basement level 5 of the subway with an ATM wedged in it, how can you resist?

What a great photo! This is near the start of the marathon, which left from here a few hours ago. There are piles of clothes everywhere as it was 0 degrees when the race started, so people turning up to run just threw their tracksuits on the ground. A truck is here collecting everything already.

The world cup stadium.

Another great photo! Marathon aftermath. There were approximately 641 buses in the car park here that presumably dropped people off to run and now need to wait for the roads to reopen so they can drive to the finish line across town. Although like all marathons these day, almost no one actually runs a marathon, as there are 1.6km, 5km, 10km, 20km events also... for which you still get a medal that says you ran the Seoul marathon. Do you want a medal or what?

I crossed the road to the children's forest park. Still not aware it was a rubbish dump.

Nice flowers on this bridge.

At this stage I remember thinking, that staircase looks enticing, there is no doubt I am going up it to what seems to be called sky park, but I better ask google if sky park costs money. That is when I found out it was a rubbish dump!

View from half way up the tallest mountain of garbage in the world.

It is only 300 stairs to the top, and yet a few people were putting on a show for how brave they were to tackle it.

Looking back at the world cup stadium, and Bukhansan mountains on the left. Still relatively clear today, but not as clear as yesterday. However on some days you cannot even see those mountains from the city.

Pipes full of methane everywhere. Calorific value. I am just going to drop random rubbish dump terms all over this.... Putrescible.

Some nice views from the top.

And here it is, the sea of wheat. This is a top tourist attraction of Seoul, but like I said earlier, I thought it was along the river at river level. It is in fact the top of the dump.

More wheat, and windmills. I said it earlier, the wheat serves a purpose, it leeches toxins from the soil. A process called phytoremediation. There are actually special breeds of wheat to do specific things depending on the type of toxin. Although that might be marketing nonsense by people selling special wheat.

As an Australian, it is a special treat to see a field of wheat, as we do not have any such thing in Australia.

Here's a view from the edge of the wheat field. I originally intended to walk over the bridge on the right, but ended up walking over the bridge in the centre.

I will quite happily take photos of people posing for other peoples photos.

Last view shot from wheat field rubbish dump paradise.

I walked down the far side to the local waste incinerator and took myself on a tour of the pre incinerator sorting and baling station. In the foreground of this shot you can see they have built ornate walls filled with garbage. Quaint.

This is the base of the rubbish dump, which is also a very nice park, and also has lots of pipes sucking methane out of the ground. This methane goes to a nearby place behind the above pictured waste incinerator to power a process that produces hydrogen to power the buses.

My attempt to cross bridge #1 failed, but I did get to take this great photo of traffic, so it was totally worth it.

Here is bridge #2, which allowed me to walk over it. The area along the river seemed to have no cars, but millions of cyclists.

The swimming centre however was closed. The fence around it had pictures of approximately 9 million people crammed into it, I presume it closed down because they all got pool herpes or similar.

As I mentioned above, I crossed the bridge alone.

And finally, one last pic from the bridge, still plenty more bridges to try and walk over. But why are there no boats? You would think there would be thousands. Google / Naver maps shows ferry terminals and dashed lines for where they go, but I did not see a single ferry all day.

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.

Paldang station. Top tip, there is no convenience store nearby so get your supplies before you leave Seoul. I did, I always check Naver for convenience stores near any station I plan to start a hike from. It has a CVS button right on the map to toggle them on and off.

It is only a short walk to the start of the actual trail. That is one of the peaks for today.

The starting gate had a cat protecting it. Note he bows down to me and my awesome boots, which is correct.

The path had no fences today, but was generally well sign posted... more on that soon. There are a few bits where the leaves have hidden the trail, I expect that will become tricky on some upcoming hikes on less trodden routes.

Parts were very rocky. Note the railing with ropes to guide the way. I never understand how they select the bits that need this and the bits that do not.

Late autumn colour. The lower down the more colour.

A view across the river to another mountain I might climb later on this trip. It is actually shorter than today's mountains. I think the mountain across the way always looks higher then the one you are on for some reason.

A view back towards part of Seoul from part way up. The main parts of Seoul are further along the river to the right.

Some more view. I was making great progress.

Getting near the top of peak number one.

Hmm, It seems I could have just run up this convenient wheelchair ramp the whole way?

Except its a funicular railway to the observatory! I observed a couple of people there working.

The observatory is of a non military nature so there is no razor wire, and this is a little shop someone probably runs on the weekends, it looks like an ice chest they would fill with ice creams hauled up by people that work at the observatory and have access to the little train thing.

A view all along the Hangang river back towards Seoul.

Yes, I still get hot and sweaty when it is cold. I could have worn shorts today if it was not so cold when I started out.

Today's stance has a great background.

The smoke today is all from farmers burning their crops. I could smell / taste it. It looks cool in photos, but I would still prefer it to be clear.

Here is a bit more smoke with peaks peaking through it. After peak 1, I just skipped along the most obvious trail and after about 20 minutes thought to myself, should I be going this far down already? No. I had taken the wrong trail. So I had to do a double back. This was my fault, I did not check a map or sign, I just assumed I knew.

More of the special wheat! Growing wild. I double checked I was on the right trail. I was, now.

This unmarked peak is a hang glider departure point. But wait, I am 2 hours into this hike, how do they carry their canvas covered bamboo poles held together with twine that somehow become a human suspended from a kite up here?

They use this track up the back of the mountain. This is not on the map at all. Must be a private road.

A bit more view because the tree was cool.

After peak 1 there were a few more along the way without views, it was miles of up and down on this leaf covered trail.

Occasionally the leaves gave way to rocky bits of the trail.

There was some down and up again. Here I am going down before going back up that peak in the background, which is only a sub peak before a superior peak behind it. Today's word of the day is clearly, peak.

Near the centre, you can see the observatory from earlier. I had walked along the ridge line up to the observatory from the left, then continued on off the frame to the right and back around to here... still a bit of distance to go too!

A view down the valley in another direction. Some of the trees down there are still yellow.

View from the final peak of the day, Ungilsan. I think the bridge in the middle is the train I will catch, which then goes in a long tunnel under the mountains I had climbed over. It is the same river as the shots in the other direction, it makes a 90 degree left turn around this group of small mountains.

Some more view from Ungilsan.

It felt like a 2 selfie day, so that's what I did.

The descent down had some colourful bits.

Obligatory Buddha.

Nearly back down... I like this pic.

And, back down. If you sqint you can see the observatory just about smack bang in the centre of the frame.

I arrived back at Ungilsan station expecting to be on a train in 5 minutes time, but it was 20 minutes late. An elderly Korean woman followed me around the platform telling me repeatedly that she loves America, take me there! Disneyland! Trump! Levi Jeans! No amount of telling her I am Australian seemed to register, I do not think she actually understood English. I am pretty sure she was old when the Korean war started!

First I headed down to the sewer to have a look at an art installation. It will not be the only art installation photo this evening.

Next I sat in the sewer itself and took a long exposure photo. Came out pretty well.

Then I took a similarly long exposure of the new avenue leading to the Palace, complete with ghostly shadow figures that crossed through my frame while the shutter was open.

I think this entire little street is new, it reminds me of a Chinese city with the coloured light poles that do not really serve a purpose.

This is art, apparently. It is out the front of the opera house / some sort of theatre. Note the signs warning you not to walk on the fake grass.

I descended under an office tower and found a labyrinth of little restaurants for business people, photo copy centres, optometrists and dry cleaners. I had a strong flash back to a similar place on the quiet side of Shinjuku in Tokyo.

I got an almost vegetarian stir fry for my dinner. Well it had egg in it, and presumably kim chi too, but it was actually pretty good.

There is the palace itself at the end of the street.

This area is where everyone protests, and they can happen any night of the week for almost any reason. The police are always here ready to pepper spray a few hundred thousand people. So basically it is like peak Angry Dave / Cooker marches in Melbourne, but 10 times bigger and every night of the week. Melbourne is expected to have a few more shortly for the upcoming election in Victoria. Break out the rubber bullets.

My journey back to my hotel went down some laneways filled with restaurants that would turn me away. I refuse to hyphenate laneway.

The laneways also had many little shops like this, often selling just pottery, but sometimes a bit of everything.

And for the last shot of the evening, a bit of random neon. Tomorrow is NOT a hiking day, I do not know what I will do yet!

When the bus arrives at Namhansanseong (say it fast twice) you will realise it is more of a tourist city than just a Unesco World Heritage site (which it also is).

It took me some time to find the wall, but the leaves were nice. More leaf views later.

A wall with a very smoky city below. Very smoky. Depending on the direction of the sun, terribly smoky. Remember when 2 days ago I was celebrating the lack of pollution?

Behold, the north gate.

You can walk along bits of the outside of the wall. Now if I was designing this wall, I would have it slant outwards, to make it harder for attackers to climb up.

More wall.

There are periodic structures to gawk at.

The ancient wall is mostly still under construction and covered in tarps.

Millions of brilliant white apartment buildings.

I imagine 2 weeks ago, these leaves would have looked great.

The South gate, I think.

I suspect this was or is a graveyard. The smoke hanging over it made for a decent photo.

This is perhaps the most enticing part of the wall. But it is completely off limits.

Instead, I get to walk along the road, and admire the colours.

Eventually I did find some long bits of wall which I pretty much had to myself.

This is the tree where they used to string up misbehaving concubines. The practice stopped in 1998.

I went to see a wall, so there are lots of photos of the wall.

This is an actual original bit of wall. Well I do not know if it is original, but apparently it is over 400 years old.

This even looks steep, but it was still steeper than it looks.

LAST WALL SHOT!

Now it is time to look at the Palace, here is the gate.

As I mentioned, it is a fairly plain sort of a Palace, only to be used in emergencies.

I walked to the very back corner of the Palace grounds to check the lawn was mowed correctly.

LAST PALACE SHOT!!

And of course, for the ride back down, I was sent to the back of the bus.

I got off one station early to walk along the river at dusk.

Here is somewhere I SEOUL U still exists. Actually it still exists in lots of places, but I do believe it has been officially replaced. It was universally despised when they spent billions coming up with it. Blood moon makes first sneaky appearance.

There is my best shot of the moon. It is redder than it appears here. I suspect that is because of pollution smoke, not because of the eclipse, but who knows. My camera has no zoom, so I cropped a bit.

Banking AND finance.

There is a big park running along the edge of the buildings with no one in it. The path is starlit. Presumably for everybody, but possibly just for me.

I took a long exposure of the mini lake and cranked the exposure to see in the dark.

There is 'The Hyundai', their flagship store. It is much larger than it appears. Hyundai make much more than just cars in Korea, they have many department stores all over the country. But first I have to work out how to get over the road. If there was an underpass I never found it. I had to walk hundreds of metres to find a way across.

It is the whitest department store ever.

However, the basement is the new winner for best food area of any store I know of. This is not even 1/10th of the place.

They have even solved the food truck problem, well almost. I hate food trucks because there is nowhere to sit, there are flies everywhere, you eat with plastic or bamboo cutlery that snaps on first use, there is no running water for them to clean anything etc. Here They just lowered 22 food trucks permanently into the basement, wired them for real electricity and piped in real water.

Now I just said that basement food trucks were great. You order from a touch screen which selects from all the food trucks, I am fine with that. But you cannot pay by cash or card. At least I could not figure it out and it had an English menu option on the touch screens. It wanted a Korean phone number and an email address before you could find out how to pay. I think you had to sign up for a virtual store card? There was no way I was doing that so instead I went to one of the non food truck options also in the basement and had... bibimbap. It was a good bibimbap though, purple rice, the best of all rice!

And for the last pic of the evening, next door is another big mall, all underground, 3 levels, the IFC mall, which I think is a Hong Kong company.
Tomorrow may or may not be a hiking day, I will see if I have covid yet in the morning. Ever since reading that cases were spiking and seeing people sneezing and coughing everywhere I looked I have been trying to convince myself that I must surely have it.