A friend called me up, saying she'd be in the downtown area around 7 and wanted to hit some roofs.
1. We met up and hit a roof just as the golden hour was fading.
2. Our first roof was an easy one overlooking Seoul Station and Seoullo 7017, a former overpass that was converted into a park last year. Yes,
it's in the LDB. Exploration of closed overpasses has become a significant part of what I do here.
3. It lights up at night.
4. Also, Seoul Square, the big red building on the other side, offers intermittent skyscraper-sized animations.
5. Meanwhile, deeper in the downtown core, tens of thousands of Koreans had gathered for Korea's first 2018 World Cup game, against Sweden. Korean fans are known as Red Devils and wear these flickering devil horns. My friend is Vietnamese though.
6.
7. After the massive protests of 2016 and 2017, which saw upwards of 1 million people gathered in the same spaces calling for the resignation or impeachment of the president, this seemed pretty tame. Also compared to previous World Cups. I remember going to games later at night and seeing way more people, to the point where the temperature was magnified to sauna level by all the people gathered. Whether we're at a protest or a World Cup game, everyone is orderly and civic-minded. Downtown is probably never cleaner than the morning after a World Cup game due to people cleaning up after themselves.
8. This was a tense game, the only one Korea stood a chance of not being absolutely defeated. Next two games are with Mexico and Germany.
By the way, take note of that building in the background, Seoul Metropolitan Library, previously Seoul City Hall, built in 1925 by the Japanese imperialists. The new City Hall is the tsunami-shaped building rearing up behind it.
9. We talked our way into City Hall, where we managed to get onto the roof of the library. This was my second time up here, the first being
during a masked protest after the previous president said anyone wearing masks would be treated like a terrorist.
10. Probably the best panorama I got. That damn screen in the upper left, which was not showing the game, kept changing. You can see on the right side how everything, including the crowd and the hotel, is bluer.
11. At the end of the street is Sungnyemun, or Great South Gate. Seoul used to be a tiny fortified city surrounded by a city wall. The previous roof we were at is on the other side of this gate, outside the original boundary of the city.
12. You can just barely make out my new scooter, coloured yellow, parked on the corner.
13. Kat was busy trying to get a signal going so she could livestream the game.
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Anyway, Korea lost by one goal, and I predict it will face a total shutout for the rest of the World Cup. Nobody here really cares, which is why there was such a low turnout; never has the peace mood been stronger here, as the North opens up to negotiations, and the liberal party absolutely crushed the conservatives in a mid-term election last week. Quite possibly at the next World Cup Korea will do even worse, as there might be a joint North-South team, and those guys suck.
