Why go then, you may wonder. Well, for Frits it was his only day of from work for sightseeing. So of we went.
The neighborhood is a maze of winding -up and down- alleys and streets with houses in Hanok style.
Hanok is a traditional, Korean form of architecture. It often involves: mountain in the back, river in front, floor heating and porches or verandas. Not sure if all these elements are used here, since it is quite a cramped area.
The houses here have similar robust, wooden front doors, red or grey clean brick walls and black-slated roofs.
The uniformity and continuity of the architecture in that small area gives you the feeling as if you walk in an open air historic museum. Nothing is less true, since the neighborhood is very much alive and in use.
The charm of the area clearly is inviting to a lot of tourists, although on that day the snow probably cut most explorations short.
We ended our own exploring walk when the snowing got worse and worse and when we were getting colder by the minute.
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| Doing an ‘Asian’, as I call it. Aka making the V-sign as soon as a camera pops up;-). |
Fortunately we were able to get a good impression of the Hanok architecture.
Hopefully I will be able to revisit with good weather one day, and take more time to walk through this neighborhood. There are lots of nice shops, restaurants, galleries and musea around that we did not get to explore.
What do you think about this architecture? Do you like it?
Looks very traditional.
You are quite the plucky tourists. The weather looked positively miserable.
I have to laugh when I see them holding umbrellas in the snow. That would not go down here.
bisous
Suzanne
Plucky. New word for me. Had to look it up;-)
Thanks, yes, we were brave.
And no, I don’t think the umbrellas were very helpful.
Darned… I signed out instead of submitting my comment!!! OK again.
I said that the both of you were wearing nice shoes while you should have been wearing boots with fur.
The architecture…hmmm yes nice, but I would not have gone out in the snow for it.
Greetje
Oh, I hate it when that happens! Thanks for taking the effort to re-comment.
We may have to go back to Seoul, so maybe then it’s worthwhile to purchase those fur boots;-).
I know, bout the snow and all, but if you have only one day, like Frits, then you will make more of an effort.