The Weekend

Starting from Seohyun Station in Bundang

On Saturday, Paul and I took the subway to Cheonadong which is in Eastern Seoul (Line 8-pink line). We met up with a good friend Soo young and the three of us got on the subway again to Jungro. We started taking pictures when we got to the subway, on the subway, and again when we got off again! This pic here is of an older couple and to the right someone sleeping. It is kind of tiring sometimes and that's why they play music over the intercom when the train is coming to a crossover to another subway line. This pic to the left is of a fire hydrant and the water containers next to it are often used for holding parking spaces on the street.

When we got to Jungro Station, we took a few pictures around the streets. It's one of the oldest parts of Seoul and it has a lot of history. We stopped at a small restaurant and Paul had Tofu soup and I had cold noodles (great in the hot weather!) The small park we went to first is a very old park and the first speeches planning the Independence movement of Korea from Japan was read here. Around the park there are signs like this one, all made in copper. The sepia pic is one of the entrances to the park but it's closed off. If you click on the pic you can see a larger size of it and you can notice the detail of the roof tiles.

Sometimes I forget that the city of Seoul has over 11 million people, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. It was pretty muggy on Friday and even hotter on this street in Insadong. This street is full of art museums, art shops, souvenir shops, and lots of quaint little coffee shops as well. It was pretty packed as you can see in this picture.


After a while, we decided to sit down for a bit and have a coffee in a place called 'Wednesday' Coffee shop. It was an open style place but it was still pretty hot in there and they had the air conditioning on as well! But just before that, I was spotted wearing my new Holland shirt. It's a replica of the shirt the Dutch wore at the 1974 Final. Two women from Eindhoven, Esther and Lara spotted it and we talked for about 15 minutes. I don't know who is who in the picture, sorry! We were interrupted when the shop owner complained and asked us to move though! We were distracting his postcard business!






Finally, we went to this temple where probably 2-3000 people were also at! They were chanting some things and praying to Buddha. It was Buddha's 2550th birthday I saw on a sign. If you click on this picture below you can see that number on the banner to the left of my head. The woman to my left was taking money and pouring some water over a small Buddha figure I think, something like that. It was bloody hard to get a picture of her and I together, she was a little busy and so many people were in line trying to get some water to pour over the little Buddha's head for good luck!




This last pic was inside the temple area. It was so packed in there! I wanted to get a pic of some of the monks closer up but it was really really packed!! They had a table of about a hundred or so candles where people would come to and make a wish and pray. Some of the people looked really into it and to be honest it was a little spooky but at the same time very interesting to watch! But these pictures can only show you a little bit. The atmosphere was so different, so many people chanting in unison, and it's kind of hard to describe. One of those things where you have to be there I guess!



That's about it for now. I should go to bed soon. I have a lot more pictures but I can only put so many on here that I know of....Hope you had a great weekend everybody!