Swimming in Seoul

 I went back up to Seoul over the weekend, as I felt like doing something different for a change.

Just as Seoul seemed like a relatively familiar place, I  happened upon a few strange things.

Firstly, this picture isn't strange, but it sure is orange.

 I love this kind of shiny car trail photography.  That's the actual name for it too.


The accidental lean notwithstanding, I like how this shot came out.  These shots are ridiculously easy to take; the downside is that it's really difficult to take an interesting picture like this, as they've been replicated a million times over.  Just take lots of them, I guess.

 This was taken inside a normal city bus.  There were a large number of them, one for every seat.

I don't know what they're for, but they certainly livened up an otherwise drab and commonplace interior.

As a side-note, taking steady shots while on a bus is  extremely difficult!

 The woman serving ice-cream, of the mint-choc-chip variety, threw the cone at us.

It landed on the floor, and to my dismay was unsalvageable.  Luckily she promptly handed over another cone, and all was right with the world once more.

Mint-choc-chip is extremely rare here, as it is in Japan.  Finding a food item that's green generally means that it's tea, not mint.

 This funky looking wall surrounded a small stage.

I assume this was some kind of fashion booth during the day.  As it was, we arrived around midnight, so everything was packing up.

I began to wonder why we were wandering at such an hour; it seems Seoul doesn't sleep much though.

(Addendum:  Night photography is really hard!)

 This is the same thing as above - the additional width makes it look more impressive I think.

It was quite an interesting effect, and for a country where fashion has been stuck in a shoulder pad heavy time-loop for twenty years, quite modern.

 This is a closer look at the individual squares that made up the installation.

They were a huge number of random people, all kind of holding hands.  Despite the horrifying simplicity of the 'message,' this wall conveyed, it still looked impressive.

It's funny that this should be so interesting despite it's main characteristic, rather than because of it.

 Bizarrely, arguably, this is my favourite picture.

I love abstract things, and entirely devoid of context, I think this looks cool.

Not being straight just adds to the charm...

 Having lost the ability to maintain a level horizontal plane when I was dropped on my head at three years old, I've always struggled to take good pictures of people.

I opt, therefore, to take extremely close shots, so that my inadequacy is masked, if only a little.

This is the girl I borrowed the camera from.  And very patient she is too.

 And this is her running out of patience.

'Why the hell is he taking random pictures in here?'

Who knows.

 I include this picture because I'm a child.

There is no other reason.

 And this is where Seoul began to surprise me.

This  river is built into the city, with an artificially constructed course that lies well below street level.  It's open all day, every day, and this  picture (taken at one AM) is a reasonable depiction of the start.

I don't know whether the river was originally natural, and has been artificially adjusted to follow this new path, but it's an extremely attractive part of Seoul.  I would go so far as to say that it's my favourite place so far.

There are a large number of bridges crossing this man-made river; each of which has  a pseudo-theme attached.  Some are made in a traditional Asian style, some are ugly concrete, some are brick, and all have interesting lighting or artistic installations.

This is where the pictures stop, because a certain wally (seen earlier) forgot to charge the camera.

Next time I go to Seoul I will definitely take more pictures of this river though.

An hour or so later, after a leisurely stroll, we happened across a Hyundai department store.

It's a twenty-four hour department store, and was incredibly busy despite the ridiculous hour.  People were happily frequenting the coffee shops, purchasing clothes and mingling, as if it were merely midday.

I've never seen anything quite so surreal as a family walking past with balloons and ice-creams, mum carrying shopping, dad carrying the littlest, at Two Am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Why would you take your children to a place like that, at that crazy time?

和 This character means peace/harmony in Japanese, and 'and,' in chinese.

I still don't know what it means in Korean.  I wasn't joking when I said I'd learn more Mandarin and Japanese while I'm in Korea, than Korean.

Korean people just aren't willing to teach foreigners; and then they wonder why no-one is interested in learning about their culture.  Asinine.