Undoubtedly folding bicycles were the most prominent kind of bicycle at the fair. Since I came to Seoul its presence has been increasing an today I would say they are the most common kind of bicycle used by people living in Seoul, a city where space at homes is something very valuable.

One of the folding bikes, folded.

What would these guys be so interested in? …

… of course, these three bikes from the manufacturer “American Eagle”. Americans always know how to attract people’s attention

This poor Look carbon monoframe was left forgotten next to some boxes as if nobody cared about it…

If you don’t like titanium components because of their dull color (I love it by the way), don’t worry. This company makes gold-plated titanium components (no-kidding, really gold-plated).

Taxis in Seoul are popular because they are equipped with GPS since several years ago. Now bicycles can also have these devices.

This was the most expensive bike I saw in the exhibition… 15 million won (around 13,000 USD) for a true piece of work by De Rosa.

The whole family of Mavic wheels for road cycling. The top set was priced at 5,2 million won (4,800 USD).

These bikes with fixed gears (a.k.a. “fixies”) are also quite popular these days. They are usually painted in very live colors (I’m sure many Korean girls would love this one). Not having a free wheel make the bike lighter and cheaper, and require less maintenance. Some of them don’t even have brakes, as you can brake just by stopping pedaling.

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Ayummas cooking (and/or drinking) in a street market.

A pojangmacha in the street.

Another pojangmacha. Koreans love to buy food at these places, you can buy anything from a hotdog to tteokbokki (떡볶이).

Cellphone-cover shop in Hongdae.

A street near my apartment (and no, I don’t live in the countriside, it is quite common to find streets like this one in Seoul just some meters away from the newest and most luxurious buildings).

Tap-dance performance during the Seoul Fringe Festival.

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Poster of 방자전 (The Servant), one of the most popular Korean movies this year, which we were invited to watch.

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The parade in Insadong reminded me of the Cavalcade of Magi in Spain.

Pungmul performance during the parade.

As in Chinese culture, the dragon is a very important figure in Korean culture, and it is very present in all Korean celebrations.

Chariots were made of a kind of paper with light inside, which made them very colorful at night.

View of another chariot.

Lanterns are everywhere in the city during the Budda’s Birthday previous days. All Buddhist temples, as well as the busiest areas of the biggest Korean cities are adorned with lanterns like these during these days.

More lanterns

View of the Jogyesa Temple, with all the lanterns for Budda’s Birthday.

Also for this occasion, the Cheonggye Stream (a.k.a. Cheonggyecheon) had this great look with all the lanterns.

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There were two things that surprised me. One is that there were many children skating, and many of them taking speed skating (the boys) or figure skating (the girls) lessons.

View of the ice rink right after being cleaned-up (every hour more or less everybody has to go out during 15 minutes so that the ice rink can be cleared of scratches in the ice).

People skating. On the left you can see the children learning how to speed-skate.

The second thing that I saw was that there were many couples wearing “couple t-shirts”, a trend in some Asian countries by which couples wear the same clothes to show their love in public. This is not just limited to t-shirts (or hoodies in this case). You can also find “couple pants”, couple shoes, couple cups… and some couple even dress totally the same, from shoes to cup…

Couple t-shirt model “heart”.

Couple t-shirt model “posh”.

Couple t-shirt model “cute”

And the speed skating star. Born to skate!

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The answer… in February

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The airport with snow everywhere (luckily enough, we didn’t have any problem to land).

More snow…

And more snow from my appartment’s window…

Snow in “my neighborhood”‘s square (wanna try to sit there for a while?)…

A motorbike covered by snow…

So yes…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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In fall, the color mixture on the trees’ leaves can make the day of anyone who likes photography

More color mixture…

It is only possible to enter the palace in one of the organized tours during the day. There are tours available in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, at different times during the day.

One of the yards of the palace. Those stone posts on the ground are indicators of the position where the different king’s officials must stand.

A closer view of the posts. On them there is the name of each official written in Chinese.

This lake gets full of water lilies in summer, giving it quite an amazing look (picture here).

One of the gardens’ gates. The fences are made of bamboo and the roof is the one you can view in many temples and palaces from the Joseon dynasty.

This lake is another one of the many romantic corners in this palace.

Many famous Korean dramas have been filmed in these gardens. Among them, one of the most popular is Dae Jang Geum (or Jewel in the Palace, in the States), set in Korea’s Joseon dynasty.

Jiwon doing the favorite pose of all Asians

Visits to this palace are quite limited. It closes on Mondays, and to go in you have to join one of the few organized tours for 3,000 KRW the normal one, and 5,000 KRW for the one they call “special” (I don’t think it is so special, but can be an option if you miss one of the “normal” tours, as there are not many tours during the day). The “normal” tours in English start at 11:30, 1:30, and 3:30. The tour takes around one hour twenty minutes approximately and you can expect to walk around 1.6 miles during that time.

Given their proximity, it is possible to see both the Changdeok and Gyeongbok palaces in one day. If you take this option, it may be better to see the Changdeok Palace first, because it closes earlier and it is also more limited in times.

Finally, I must also say that, only on Thursdays, it is possible to visit the palace without a tour (they call it “self-guided tour”) given that you are willing to pay as much as 15,000 KRW per person. For those who want to take pictures without people around this may be a good option.

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When I first arrived in Seoul, one of the things that surprised me the most was how seriously they take recycling here. For all westerners, Korea is a country with too many rules (written and unwritten), and garbage disposal is not an exception.

In Seoul (I am not sure about how the handle this in other cities in Korea) they classify waste into several categories:

1. Food Waste

You can think about food waste as “anything that can be eaten by an animal”. This means bones, shells, toxic or strong spicy food (like a swell-fish) are not food waste. You should keep your food waste at home in a small plastic bag and throw it away without the plastic bag.

The container for the food waste is undoubtedly the most unpleasant one (sorry for the picture if you were eating…).

2. General Waste

General waste is anything that can’t be recycled and is not food waste or a bulky item (such as a couch or a table). The idea is that people have to pay for the waste they generate. The more waste you generate, the more you have to pay.

And how do they do it? Well you can’t throw away your waste in any bag. They have special bags specific for every district (Gu) of Seoul. You can buy these bags at any Family Mart or Seven Eleven in your neighborhood (they are specific for every area, so buy them at the convenience store you will probably have in your building). You have to specify the size of the bag in littres (10 or 20 litres are the most common sizes, and a pack of ten 20-littre bag is around 4,000 KRW). One problem if you don’t speak basic Korean is that they don’t usually speak English at convenience stores, so the word in Korean for trash bag is something like “soo-reh-gui pong-too”, good luck!

Container for the general waste (일반쓰레기). On the sign you can read “By all means, use only standard bags”.

Containers for food waste and general waste, located at the back of the building where I live. Under the CCTV sign, the say that you have to throw food waste without the plastic bag, which you have to place separately in the blue bin.

These are the standard bags that you have to pay for.

3. Recyclables

Every building has its own recycling facilities where you have to take your trash and classify it by paper, glass, vinyl, plastic, milk packs. The signs are usually written only in Korean, but you don’t need to know what they say, just look at what’s inside every bin and put the same things inside (not too difficult huh?).

This is the recycling room in my building. Usually they are at the basement of every big building.

Korean signs for bottles (공병), plastic (프라스틱), and vinyl (비닐).

Korean signs for styrofoam (shock absorbing material found in electronic products’ boxes, noodle containers, etc.), fluerescent lamps, bulbs, and batteries.

Here on the left, you can also see the containers and signs for cans (캔), and milk packs (우유팩).

Another view of the recycling room.

4. Large Items

You also have to pay to throw away large items such as a couch or a chair. The price depends on what you are throwning away, from 2,000 KRW for a small fan to 15,000 KRW for a double bed or a piano.

The process to throw away such an item is kind of complicated, you have to go to your neighborhood’s local office, pay the fee over there, and they will give you a sticker that you have to put on the item once you throw it away so that they pick it up on they day they will tell you.

Anyway, I can tell you that if you talk to the maintenance guy in your building (you better speak Korean or have a Korean friend), you can probably reach an agreement with him so that he will take care of the item: I had my building ayoshi get rid of my old bed for 1,000 KRW, which now makes me think he didn’t quite follow the rules…

The main source for this post was a brochure I got at Seoul Global Center (SGC) entitled “Living in Seoul 1: Garbage Disposal”. If you are in Seoul, the SGC is at the Press Center near the city hall (City Hall subway station, exit number 4). They can help you with this and many more things.

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The entrance to the park reminds that of any Disneyland.

What I liked the most of this park is that it is in the middle of the mountains, with attractions mixing with the trees. The park is so huge that you have to take a chairlift to go from one area to another. The rollercoaster in the background is one of the most recent attractions (it opened in 2008). It is made of wood and has one of the steepest freefalls in the world (you can see some pictures from when they were building it here). Unfortunately (or luckily) I couldn’t ride it, as it was closed because of the rain.

One of the few attractions that we could ride was the “Safari World”, or “사파리 월드”, as they write it in Korean.

Basically, they get you on a bus and take you on a tour in a “Jurassic Park” style.

In Safari World, animals (bears, tigers, lions, jabalis… what you can usually find in a zoo) are more or less in liberty, although as you can see they are quite far from being wild animals. This is that this poor bear had to do to get some cookies from the bus driver.

This tiger on the other hand, decided to forget about the cookies and take a nap instead.

These kind of giant rats are coaties. They had them walking on these bridges that went over the path that people followed.

This is the most similar to a roller coaster I could ride…

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