Seoul (서울)

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Seoul (서울)

October 2009

172

You can lose your soul in Seoul. On one hand, Seoul is the incarnation of city-ness, densely populated, full of action, something different or new at every street corner; on the other hand, it is old, full of tradition and history. I'd always thought that Seoul was a soulless (forgive the pun) artificial city, newly built or extended from a small country town after the Korean war. But in fact, Seoul has served as the capital of Korea longer than any other Asian capital, more than 700 years now. There are buildings going back to the times of great king Sejong. There are no less than five royal palaces in the old town of Seoul, two of the old city gates, and many more temples, shrines and other historical buildings. The burial mounds of several Korean kings are in the city, as well as some mounds from an earlier period of Korea. At the same time, the city is sprawling across the landscape, growing in three dimensions, there are arcologies of nameless identical residential skyscrapers, adorned with the logos of Koreas great Chaebol (industrial conglomerates), probably housing employees of those companies exclusively. A hyper-efficient fast and comprehensive network of subways shuttles masses of people between the residential and office areas. Running this Moloch's infrastructure must be an incredible task. And even though most Koreans now own cars, and even though traffic can be slow at peak hours, it never assumes the nightmare dimensions of traffic in Bangkok or Manila. Sprawling between and around geographical features like Mount Bukhan, Mount Namsan (the "Southern Mountain", now south of the historical centre but firmly inside city limits), the great Hangang river and others, citizens are never far from greenery or outdoor activities. Those outdoor places can be packed, especially on weekends, but they are there - it's not clear to me which is more important to Koreans: shopping or hiking

Seoul (서울)

The city (시) [ 48 images ]	Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) [ 28 images ]	Changdeokgung (창덕궁) [ 20 images ]	Changgyeonggung (창경궁) [ 8 images ]
Namsan (남산) [ 8 images ]	Namsangol (남산골) [ 8 images ]	Dongdaemun (동대문) [ 4 images ]	Apgujeong (압구정) [ 4 images ]
Inwangsa (인왕사) [ 16 images ]	Samneung (삼릉) [ 16 images ]	Yeouido(여의도) [ 8 images ]	Incheon (인천) [ 4 images ]

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