Seoul Searching
All roads in South Korea lead to Seoul. It’s a huge city in a relatively small country – about half of the entire country’s 50 million inhabitants live in Seoul. It’s a metropolis defined by a rapid economic growth spurt between the 1960s-1990s, making it one of the early Asian boomtowns outside of Japan. On the international level, it’s known as a technology player on par with the likes of Tokyo and Silicon Valley.
You’ll come to realize some strange things about Seoul. Its cityscape is quite… utilitarian. You’ll see identical concrete high-rises rinsed and repeated hundreds of times, and it makes you wonder if there might only be one or two architects responsible for this entire, gigantic, city. Even the historical Korean architecture that you’ll find at temples doesn’t have the attention to detail that you’ll find in their fellow Asian counterparts. It’s understated, and simple, and repetitive. If it sounds a bit drab, it can be, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find gobs of excitement in Seoul, if you know where to find it. Head up the right hill, or down that perfect alleyway, you’ll find it. In this gallery, I did my best to capture the essence of Seoul.
In other tidbits, my Gwangju gallery was picked up by Photo Dialogue, would you can find by clicking that link. A Bangkok gallery is up next, otherwise, enjoy the holidays. Peace.
Seoul
By most counts, it’s the second largest city on earth. The heart and soul of Korea. Here’s a few from Seoul!
Gwangju
On a map, you’ll find Gwangju a few finger widths from the south western tip of the Korean peninsula. It’s surrounded by mountains, like just about any place in Korea. I enjoyed my time here; the people are nice, the food is good now I’m of to get some Seoul.
Leaving Shanghai, a warm welcome in South Korea.
Shanghai was a hard place to leave. For me, the city was magnetic; drawing me towards it at first, and later refusing to let me go. Every step seems like an adventure, every street corner has something interesting. It can be scenic or it can be chaos. Shanghai is glamourous but rude, and the showpiece of China.
So with Shanghai in my rearview, I landed in Incheon, South Korea yesterday afternoon. It’s hard to imagine just how different South Korea is from China, even just this short flight over from Shanghai. By comparison, Korea is organized, polite, and subtle. That’s just relative to China, in my experience.
I took a bus nearly from the top end of this small country to the bottom and didn’t even need a washroom break. In 4 hours I arrived in Gwangju where I’ll be for the next 3 days. This compact city of 1.4 million feels like a village compared to Shanghai, but is actually quite a major metropolitan city itself. Of course, I’ve got a bit to share!
