unexpected free day

I had an unexpected free day today, so I did a little wandering.  Unfortunately, while it's somewhat pleasant in the sun, it's very cold and windy today, so I didn't do as much walking about as I'd wanted to.  Plus, today was a Yellow Dust day, and the Army's website says conditions are moderate.  Turns out outdoor PE was cancelled for the school kids and they had to stay indoors.

At one end of Insadong, there is an open plaza area where they stage historical re-enactments of traditional ceremonies, like weddings, that has just been redone.  Now, there's the stage, but also room for vendors to set up stalls and sell stuff.

Pillar at edge of the plaza area with tile flower designs:


Stage:


After leaving Insadong, I headed up for Samcheongdong, another little touristy area nearby.  There are lots of art galleries, and various pieces of art installed along the streets.  There was one stone wall that had what I originally thought were bits of chewing gum stuck to it, but upon closer inspection, it was stone stuff glued to the wall.  There were quite a few of these throughout the area.  Here's a street corner with paintings on the walls and a sign pointing towards someplace.

Building in Samcheongdong.  The colors are what caught my eye.


Door of a house.  Many of the doors are these colored panels with designs on them.  Apparently there were dogs there because they started barking as soon as I turned off my camera.


Traditional style compound, with main house surrounded by stone fence.

Older style building.  According to the plaque, this is the "Original Site of the Joseon Language Society."  I couldn't find much about the Joseon Language Society in a very quick google search, but it appears that it came about during the Japanese colonial period as a form of resistance to ensure that the Korean language was not lost.


Typical street in this neighborhood, or at least one big enough for cars to drive down.


I'm searching for a place that I've seen described in summaries of things to do and see in Samcheongdong, and if and when I ever find it, I'll post about it.  It has been described as difficult to find.  But in the meantime, I've done some urban hiking in search of it.  I've noticed that on the map I have of this area, that the line width should not be used as an indicator of whether or not a route is really a street or not.  I walked up to a specific place, which according to the map, should have a road right next to it, since the two lines were of the same width.  Nope.  Turns out that while it looks like a road on the map, it's really a very narrow alley between two buildings, that turns into a flight of uneven concrete steps going up between houses.  With post boxes.  I'd hate to be the mailman in that neighborhood, although I'd probably be in amazing shape.  This is the view from the top of the steps.  Which, by the way, put you right into the middle of a street at the top.  And yes, on the map, both the street and the alley are the same line width.

View from upper road, looking out over the southern end of Samcheongdong-gil.  Traditional style building is most likely the National Folk Museum of Korea.


I think this is art.  But I'm not entirely sure.

Random art along the road.  The Star Wars characters are what caught my eye.  The letters along the bottom read: I Thought What I'd Do Was I'd Pretend I Was One Of Those Deaf-Mutes, Or Should I?


And after all this walking around, I can barely feel my fingers.  So it's time to go home and warm up.