A few weeks ago I went in search of Seoul street art. As you’ve perhaps seen me say a few times often the best way to discover interesting things is to get lost. A lot of times you can get a ‘feel’ for a neighborhood simply by wandering through it’s street and alley ways. I like to think I’ve developed a good 6th sense (if you will) for locating street art/graffiti. I got off at a metro station I hadn’t visited before (part of my just pick somewhere and go philosophy). Unfortunately I don’t recall what the name of the station was, but it was chosen because of it’s proximity to the mighty Han river. I believe it was on Line number 6 somewhere in between Hapjeong and Gongdeok stations.
The Han river is up to 1 km wide in certain parts and has a rich history. You can read about it at wikipedia if the subject interest you. It took me a little while to find an entry way onto the Han pedestrian and bicycle path. It’s while wandering for the entry way that I came across “Korea’s best motorcycle” which you can see here.
One of the amazing things about Seoul is it’s general cleanliness. Coming from Montreal, which to me is a very dirty city I’m always amazed by the condition of the public washrooms, walkways and public spaces in general. People here seem to have a much broader sense of respect (maybe that’s not the correct term) but to put it bluntly there’s just less public destruction of property (such as graffiti, garbage, broken bottles or windows etc).
For example here’s the entry way to the underground tunnel which lead to the Han river (not a mark or scratch on it):
Coming out of the tunnel I found myself on the north side of the Han river. It was already a cloudy day and it started to drizzle shortly after I had found the riverbank:
I’ve talked about the Seoul smog in a few post. In these pictures you can see what a heavy smog day looks like. This was was no doubt caused by the lack of wind and the low clouds. When you look at the above pictures you can barely see the buildings on the other side of the riverbank. In the one below you can barely see what was once Seoul’s largest high rise building:
Walking along the Han we had an example of their “forward thinking” attitude. Here’s a sign that leaves no confusion as to which path you’re suppose to be on. You can also seen another one of the multiple exercise areas all over Seoul. A group of children and their teachers were waiting out the rain under the cover of one of the many bridges crossing the Han. Take note of the exercise cement embankment. It’ll be relevant below. I thought i’d also include a picture of some more of their public washrooms with this one having the famous (or infamous?) squat toilet.
A Korean movie that has been well received by critics over the past few years is “Monster” or the western translation called “The host”. In my opinion it’s one of the more interesting monster movies out there and has a good deal of suspense rather than your typical blood and guts that many Hollywood monster movies have.
Without ruining the plot for anyone who hasn’t seen it I’ll provide a brief description: An American mortician orders one of his Korean workers to dump a large amount of chemicals down the drain because they are passed their date of ‘usefulness’. The Korean worker protest slightly (if I’m not mistaken) but ends up dumping all the chemicals down the drain. This causes a mutation of a large fish in the Han river and it grows into “The Host” or the “monster”.
First I’ll show you some pictures from the move to give you an idea of the bridges and the monster. Notice the Han cement embankment in one of them:
One of the reasons I was walking along the Han was to see the same bridges that we’re part of the movie. The other was that I was searching for some street art/graffiti (which I found but will be a post in itself). Now I’m not completely certain that the bridges I took pictures of were the exact same that were used during the movie but with the clouds and drizzling rain it was easy to imagine a “monster” jumping out of the Han or from underneath one of the bridges. Now I’ll show you the shots of the bridges I took while wandering in the rain:
Finally you may be saying to yourself, hold on he started his post talking about street art. Well you’ll be happy to know that I found an awesome public street art display in one of the storm drains. You read that correctly in one of the storm drains! I’m saving it for an individual post on the subject, which you can find here.
mtl_dokkaebi.
