Final part
The last stop. It was quite a journey. After visiting truly otherworldly Japan we made our way to Seoul to connect all the dots and justify the “codename” of this journey: Three Capitals of Asia.
This time I want to start with film photos. Although, less than half of the film became “keepers” this time (probably because I started to be more picky, or maybe because we were already kind of tired there), there are still some not bad pictures.
서울 (Seoul) means “capital city”
Continuing on the topic of palettes: here are many more greens and even blue colors in traditional architecture. But modern buildings somehow feel even more blue. Blue glass is predominant in Seoul.
As we will see further, in Seoul you can find shops that you can’t even name what it is about. A bit of everything. And a bit more of something else.
DMZ
Demilitarized zone – where the war was frozen one day. A huge territory with number of military objects, minefields, signs of photos prohibition, nervous soldiers and souvenir shops – two realities trying to live under one roof here. Even though the cruel one tries to take over more and more.
Huge impression of this place. After seeing Hiroshima it is hard to believe that, despite a live example of what can happen there are still threats of making the same. And less attempts to find a way to let people live and be who they want for everyone they care.
Markets and blue glass
Seoul is a huge and buzzing city with multiple centers. Interestingly, here neighborhoods differ much more than in Tokyo in price- and luxury level while in Tokyo, they are more different in terms of culture, things you can find, and the mood. In Seoul, however, the mood of many places is: trade, buy, sell, exchange. Everything around pushes you to try something, to buy something (because it seems cheap and why not despite the quality visibly sub-mediocre). I didn’t like it much in one of the touristy market neighborhoods called Myrongdong. Yet, there is still something to see.
After circling around for flying by hours, it was a time for a walk. We decided to go to the other side of Han river by foot. Night started creeping pretty quickly, albeit, you can’t tell that in just 30 minutes it will be already dark.
I think it is rather unusual to walk like that in Seoul. Most people take the subway or car. There was almost no one on the bridge. Yeah, it was cold, but not so much. Maybe in summer, more people taking a walk?
Going a bit inside a block unveils much more complex structures and a lot of wire lines. I already saw many wires in Thailand and thought it was specific to that country, but this seems to be just an Asian thing.
Seoul has a blue-ish tint for me. Glass on many buildings, colors, and overall gamma gives a feeling of blue-green-toned spaces almost everywhere. Also, the weather was already mild-cold which only adds cold tones to the space.
It was a pretty big tour. And although Korea wasn’t a particular highlight in a way, I am happy we visited it. It definitely has its own vibe and unique culture. Modern and historic. I hope next time visiting Korea, more new sides of it will open. I’m pretty sure they will.
Big trip, big thoughts
3 full weeks in Asia. In 3 major countries of it. Trips like that definitely give quite some food for thought. And this one gave quite a lot.
From one side, I’m concerned about the region’s safety and how all three nations still remember so much about common downsides and still didn’t rule a fully harmonic peace. All three are dependent on each other and contribute to each other making each other better and not losing its uniqueness. But still, there are a lot of unsolved conflicts and tensions.
But from another side, this trip just confirmed how interesting and wonderful Asia is. And confirmed my long-term interest in learning about it, maybe at some point working with this region or with people from Asia. Maybe one day would be interesting to stay there for a longer time. But this time we are taking a flight home. I chose this flight specifically because of the plane. Legendary Queen of the Skies Boeing 747-400. Symbol of epoch in aviation. Behind it by the way stands the A330 of T’Way Airlines – the one we took to fly from Osaka to Seoul. This and all other T’Way’s A330s were at Aeroflot previously. Such a pity that the selfish decisions of a person(-s?) lead to so many problems. I can’t stop thinking about it when I see something like that. I hope Asia won’t do the same.
The flight was the longest we took so far. 14 hours. Quite a journey. Almost Ultra-Long-Haul. Usually, flight classifies as ULH if the duration is at least 16 hours.
Echo 