21 April 2023
Abandoned train line to dead backpackers
Gyeongui forest park
Today was definitely a rest day. I am back at my hotel early, still a bit dehydrated from yesterday.
Despite that, over 20k steps before noon.
Today I set off in a westerly direction, took a wrong turn, then fond the Gyeongui forest park, which is a long park along an abandoned train line. While walking along the old railway I got attacked by ridiculous puppies and then made friends with a cat. In Korea when you see a baby stroller (pusher / pram / etc), there is a 93% chance it has a ridiculous dog in it.
Also, I have done a study, over 90% of Koreans smoke, and young people more so. The young guys and girls all smoke long thin cigarettes. Everywhere I go I cannot believe how many people are smoking. Today I went past a high school with what looked like an official soccer game going on, the whistle blew for half time, and each team formed a huddle and passed around a packet of smokes. I was shocked.
Anyway, the day got weirder, eventually I got to the main backpacker / clubbing area of Hongdae. They are redoing all of the street furniture along the main street and also I was too early for it to be crowded anyway. But then I got to a club on top of an 'adult shop' and watched 4 cleaning ladies carry out 3 westerners from a lift, one after the other, and drop their lifeless bodies in the street! 2 guys and one girl. I could not tell if they were dead or alive. People passing kind of seemed interested for 3 seconds but then kept going.
I decided to not take a photo and to flee the scene, if they were dead then I would somehow be charged with being involved, and regardless of the outcome, drugs were surely involved.
So it was in some ways like being back home already, dead drug addicts in the street.
This is city hall. They do what they can to stop it being taken over by protests every weekend.
But don't worry, the main road is setting up for a protest today. You can see all the hung speaker arrays like you would see at a stadium concert. There was already a band playing on stage even though no one is here yet, possibly to test the speakers. I do not know what the protest was for, but the music sounded Jesus-y. In other news, no pollution at all today, I can see the mountains in the distance, sometimes they are invisible.
This thing is as tall as a house.
Now it was time to head away from the city hall area and go find another part of town. Nice roads.
Blue man with penis statue is very popular in many parts of Seoul. The plaque refers to him as greeting man. I am not sure if you are supposed to touch the penis like the various statues in Europe where that in an important thing to do.
I observed some unusual looking apartments.
Now it was time to start my walk along the Gyeongui forest park. I found it by accident.
A park dedicated to teaching children to walk along train tracks or even put their head on the rail.
Here is my new friend, the cat.
I sat at the station waiting for the train. It never came.
Now for Hongdae. As mentioned above it is under heavy re-beautification.
There are lots of shops selling BTS stickers if that is what you came to Korea for.
And finally, it was just behind me here that I observed 3 bodies, life status unknown, get dumped in the street by cleaning ladies.