Seoul during Chuseok

While Holly was visiting Amanda in Kiev, I decided to spend my holiday time exploring Seoul. For the most part, my 5 days there were spent bouldering and hiking at Bukhansan national park, on the northern outskirts of the city.

But I did meet up with my friend (and coworker)Anna to go check out the Olympic park from the 1988 Summer Olympics. Since the olympics, the area has been made an enormous park with a lot of green space. The only let down for me was that we couldn't go into any of the stadiums. In particular, I was looking forward to seeing the track where Ben Johnson ran his (sadly) famous, steroid-enhanced, record breaking 100m race. To my dissapointment none of the stadiums were open for public viewing. What's more, the stadium where Ben ran is now being used for cheezy bike racing, with thousands of men sitting outside placing bets, smoking and bustling around.

We also went to the war museum, that highlighted all the wars, armies, and empires in Korean history from the previous 2ooo years or so. The most significant and widely displayed war was the Korean War from the 1950's. The statue seen below of the 2 soldiers was taken at the museum. The effects of dividing the two states (North and South) into separate nations has really devastated people on the family level. Something I didn't know about before coming to Korea was that, in the past ~50 years, there have been many families, divided by the border, who have never been reunited with their loved ones. It's a really sad fact. But South Korea seems very eager to reunite the two countries.

So this was Seoul in a nutshell (not really, there's tons more to see and do there!). The highlight of my trip: Riding the Subway! So fun! Despite not having a subway system in my hometown of La Ronge (population: 6000) to prepare me for Seoul's subway maze, I managed to get around without getting lost. The subway was a blast. I can't wait until we get one in Saskatoon.