Seoul

I don’t post very much about Seoul. Here I am, living half the world away from my hometown, occasionally writing about traveling in Asia, but no posts about Seoul, my current city of residence.

Its not for lack of topics. Or maybe there are too many topics? Actually, the longer I live here, the less qualified I feel to write about this place. Not sure how to narrow down a city of 10 million people into a concise list of “must sees” and “must dos.”

When we got to Korea 3 years ago, I promptly set up a Flickr account and took pictures of everything. Everything that seemed a little weird or different or interesting to my non-Korean eyes.

This was something I didn’t do so much back home in NY. Though I loved my hometown (still do), I guess I had ceased to really… see… it. Ironically, at that time, I made a living designing tourism ads and brochures for places that I didn’t get to visit, and I could tell you the CMYK mix of a perfect blue Mediterranean sky.

So when we alighted here on the other side of the world – Gavin to start a new job and me with plenty of newfound time on my hands -- I was determined to not miss a thing. Out came the camera. The most mundane things got documented. I’m afraid I started to bore the folks back home with photos of tangled cable wire and kimchi sidedishes.

A post over at Primitive Culture got me wondering about how my point of view might have changed over the past few years, so I looked through all those early photo sets on Flickr to see what I noticed back then that I no longer notice now. And what I notice now that I didn’t notice then. Sifting through the photos I found that there have been both changes and constants to subject matter, though I'm not quite sure I can articulate what they signify yet.

For now, in lieu of a big fancy post about all the places to go and things to do in the capitol city of Korea, or some grand overreaching statements about what Korea is or isn't, here are some photos of Seoul. Tomorrow, we’re off to Bangkok for a few nights to see new sights and taste new flavors…

First, a few photos I took 3 years ago when Seoul was brand new to me.

1. Shopping, 2. Lotus flower, 3. Wires, 4. Shop, 5. Neon signs, 6. Colorful Construction

And here, more recent photos of what epitomizes Seoul to me now.

1. Seoul, 2. Fumigation, 3. Rain, 4. Seoul, 5. Seoul, 6. Aheondong pojangmacha, 짱