SEOUL, KOREA December 9, 2011

I left Siem Reap in Cambodia last night at 11:15 and arrived in Seoul, Korea at 6:00 am this morning.  I had 12 hours before my next flight to Vancouver so I signed up for a city tour of Seoul.  We were in a nice 15-person van and visited the Cheonggyecheon Stream, a manmade stream down the centre of downtown Seoul.  It is crossed by 27 bridges and has an artistic concrete walkway down both sides and city park along both river banks. It is meant to replicate the original stream that flowed through Seoul before the river flowing from the mountains was blocked.

We then visited Changdeok Palace, the best preserved of the five palaces of the Joseon Dynasty.  This palace is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was originally built in the mid 1400's. 

Our next stop was the Jogyesa Temple, the headquarters of the main sect of Korean Buddism

We had lunch of Korean food at a local restaurant and then had some time to browse the shops on Insadong Street.  Apparently Insadong is a famous antique street but I had not heard of it before.  It is primarily Korean souvenirs and I am souvenir shopped out so was not terribly impressed. However it was a good way to pass six hours even though I had only a couple hours sleep last night and could hardly keep my eyes open on the bus.

Korea is so different from Cambodia.  Korea is new because Seoul was pretty much destroyed in 1950 when North Korea invaded so after the war everything was rebuilt.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of huge apartment buildings.  There are organized traffic patterns and traffic lights, neither of which is seen in Cambodia.  However there are lots of traffic accidents in Seoul and hardly any in Siem Reap where various modes of transport are winding around each other but never stopping.  It is a seemingly disorganized and scary free-for-all on Cambodian roads but in reality it is a ballet of thousands of very aware and alert drivers.