Here are a few shots from my recent trip to Seoul. I only had my pocket camera, not the DSLR, so the quality isn’t the best, plus for some reason, my memory card got corrupted and I lost many of the better ones. All of these were taken in the Gwanghwamun area, near the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. This is the cultural heart of Seoul, a very high rent district, which has many theaters, concert halls and other venues. I was a bit pressed for time when I went the week before last, but I hope to get back up there in December and spend more time walking around the area.
I went to Seoul to get some more pages added to my passport. Here’s where I had to go–the U.S. Embassy. The last time I was up here, in 2005, believe it or not, the building was ringed with Korean riot police, acting as security, but nowadays you only see a few yellow-garbed security police.
I was standing in a central plaza of sorts when I took the embassy photo. In the plaza are a couple of large statues, one of King Sejong the Great and one of Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who used Yeosu as his headquarters in his battles with the Japanese. Unfortunately, the photos I took of the King Sejong statue were some of those that were lost on my memory card, but here’s one of Admiral Yi. You can see way off in the background the golden-colored Sejong statue.
Walking down the road a bit, you can see this odd Christmas-tree like structure, which marks an open space for street performances.
On this particular day, there was an exhibition of wheel chair skills, including basketball shooting and ballroom dancing, as this photo shows.
Just down from the performance space is a very lovely walking area below street level alongside a stream. It’s a great place for an afternoon stroll, and this day it was filled with office workers on lunch break, families and tourists.
Of course, the area is filled with upscale bars and restaurants. Here’s one that I thought was interesting, JS Texas Bar, complete with Elvis statue. It also had a classic Marilyn Monroe on the other side of Elvis, the iconic shot of her billowing skirt from the movie “The Seven Year Itch.” Unfortunately, it was one of the photos that the memory card ate.
Like I said, I hope to go back to Seoul in December and get some more photos. This time I’ll take the DSLR with me and a new memory card. 🙂
P.S. I took a walk down to the Expo site this past Saturday and got quite a few shots of the construction progress in that area. Things are moving along quite nicely, it appears, and I’ll try to get those photos posted sometime this week.