Third Post, Hanging on in There.

This post will be somewhat shorter than previous ones, as I'm determined to sleep well tonight.

I had a weight and body fat test at the gym, and no matter how hard I try I cannot gain weight.  I eat everything that comes my way (except tentacles, I've had enough of those for a while now) both healthy and unhealthy; yet I can't break 87Kg's.  I'm at 86Kg's right now.  It's frustrating to say the least.  I want to be a solid 90kg's, with a preference to being one or two Kilogrammes more.  It's only five Kilogrammes, why so much effort?

Of my body fat test, the machine said I had 8% body fat.  This is patently wrong, so I will test myself again tomorrow.

Onto the rest of the Seoul pictures; I wonder where todays jaunt through memory lane will take us?

I'm going to include a number of photos including these guards for two reasons.

Their positioning reminded me of our beefeaters, and some of the HSBC advertisments have them with their giant polearms.  The intimation is that these guys are chinese, but they never explicitly say as much - I guess a few people will have to know the truth.

They're very colourful though, and I can't imagine they'd be much use in combat.  No armour, no swords, just a great big flimsy stick with a cotton tail attached to it.

I guess Koreans loved cute fluffy things even back then...

Ok so this is the second of my pointless ancient military inclusions.  I was here for something akin to the changing of the guard ceremony.

Many in England think our events  are somewhat low-key compared to our European or american neighbours.  They have obviously never seen a Korean handover.  A man with drums.  Five men.  Two minutes.

It's hardly inspiring me, so I'll move on.

I felt somewhat awkward taking a picture of these guys so close up.  I'm not a real photographer, so I have no real legitimate reason to take a photo of them.

My illegitimate reason was to show the incredible boredom on their faces, and the lack of discipline with which they moved.

I began to suspect they were not, in fact, military personal at all.  They were probably hired by the same company that hires for disneyland.  I have heard nothing to suggest that this isn't true.

A shot of the 'grand,' entrance to one of the palaces in Seoul.

The colour of their uniforms doesn't convey any of the normal military emotions.  It's not particularly uniform, camoflauged or awe-inspiring.

It's kind of cute actually.

I would have no qualms about overthrowing this particular dynasty, if not for land then surely for fashion sense.

Of reportage photography I have been told that you can't get exciting or artistic shots all the time.  When reporting facts, your pictures should aim to convey some of those facts visually.

On the other hand I quite like this picture.  Even with its' quirky, barely focused subjects that are framed in a decidedly drunken fashion, I enjoyed taking it as the man tried his best not to make eye-contact with me.

I like this one too, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly it shows how long the poles are, and how, with a bit of positioning and camera trickery, you can make anything look shorter or taller, no matter how big it may be to begin with.

The second reason I like this photograph is decidedly more puerile.

You see that 'entrance,' sign behind the man, to the extreme left of the picture?

I didn't.

I was emphatically, to the point of rudeness I might add, told to move to the entrance lest I find myself in some Korean sounding trouble.  Did I mention the Koreans can be exceedingly rude?  The very same man, with a chocolate and sunbeam smile, welcomed in a pair of Korean couples.

His problem with foreigners?  I can only imagine he had the misfortune of standing next to a foreigner at a urinal.

The sky in this particular picture looks photo-shopped, in my particular world.  It reminds me of an oil painting.

This, coupled with the myriad converging lines, makes this one of my more liked photographs.  The lines really lead the eye towards the modern buildings.

Enough of that claptrap.

I just like it.

In the uninteresting reportage style I mentioned earlier - this is one of the internal parks.  There really is no way of escaping the sky-scrapers I'm afraid.

Horticulturists, name that plant.

The weather was perfect for losing weight, and for sitting in the shade.  Alas, not for much else.

It was a nice park though.

There's a big meeting of world leaders happening in Seoul soon.  Or it has already happened.  Either way, someone paid a lot of money to have the fact advertised on the side of this building.

It was also quite a selfish act, as the poor people working inside that building would have little to no light for the duration of the advertisment.  Everyone should have the basic human right to vitamin D.  Or E.  I forget which one is made in our skin.

Now we start coming to the really interesting photographs.  Unfortunately, this is also my penultimate picture for tonight, as it really is time for bed.

Despite complaining earlier about the huge numbers of concrete towers, some  of the shots do benefit from that contradiction; the juxtaposition, if you will.

I think the greenery and old world buildings, coupled with the extremely modern background is an example of that.

On the other hand, forget everything I just said and tell me whether you like the picture or not, claptrap aside.

I've just noticed that I take a lot of portrait style photographs.

This leaves a large amount of room to the side of the picture in which to write, and also means I have to fill a larger vertical space.

Remind me to produce more landscape orientation pictures in the future.

This is a famous bell, rung several hundred years ago.

I didn't have the kutzpah to ring it myself, but it was beautifully decorated, as were the water columns, part of an ancient clock, that were used to co-ordinate chimes on the hour.

Everyone loves dragons!