Korean heritage

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Location: Seoul, Korea

My friend Amie took me to see Namdaemun one night. It's a big gate that was part of Seoul's city wall roughly 550 years ago. It was the first thing to be designated a "National Treasure of South Korea."

An arsonist set fire to the gate only three months after we saw it. The fire destroyed a large portion of the gate. It took three years and $21 million to restore it. I'm glad I was able to see it before the fire.


Location: Seoul, Korea

At one point, I was walking along the Han river. I was on a pedestrian trail that had signs posted about the history of the river.

One of the signs had a large black-and-white photograph, taken in the 1960s, from the same location as the sign. It showed dozens of Korean women squatting at the edge of the river, washing clothes by hand. Behind them, there were dozens of wooden shacks with corrugated tin roofs. The standard of living was remarkably low.

I looked up from the sign. Across the perfectly-manicured embankment that separated the trail from the rest of the city, there was a gleaming skyscraper. The entrance of the skyscraper had an enormous Krispy Kreme on one side and an enormous Starbucks on the other side.

The mind boggles at the difference.

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