Leetle bit of Sinchon

Just a few pictures of Sinchon by day. I have photos of it by night, but that'd take a while to put up, so for now we'll just go with day. Sound good? Tough, it's what you get.


I believe we left off at the Main Gate, so we'll continue from there (see the edge of the Engineering Building on the right?) This is looking down the main road in front of the school. As you can see, there are many cars (nowhere near as many as during rush hour, though), our friendly red-orange traffic cone, and a gent looking quite stoic in the wind.

As a sidenote, I have no idea who he was. As I was taking this picture, another guy coming up behind me gave me a weird look, which for a moment I gave thought to, before he raised his camera and started taking pictures of the front of the school. Maybe he just thought I had really bad aim or something...



Crosswalks in Korea tend to be on the larger side. At major intersections like this one, it's probably not uncommon for 50-70 people to cross while the "Walk" sign is on. You see in this photo a very large walk strip, which is only half of the actual 'Walk' area for crossing the road. Most streets have crossings about 1/4 the size of this one's, which are still about twice the size of those I'm used to in the US. Also, you might note that Koreans don't need rain to use umbrella's. They're not big on direct sunlight (no worries - I can see them in mirrors... Actually, they spend a lot of time checking out their hair in mirrors, come to think of it...), so they often will hold papers or other items in front of their faces on a sunny day if an umbrella isn't handy.




This is a view from a bridge that crosses said main road, a bit further down. You'll note the (largely uninhabited) mountain in the middle of the city (there are a number of those), and that there's another crane there. Buses have their own center lanes (that often get used by emergency vehicles, too), since the public transportation here is kind of ubiquitous.




Much the same view, but you may also notice the stacking of signs on the nearby building. Real estate is rather limited here, so shops and cafes and pretty much everything stacks upwards. You'll see a cafe on the street, and notice the signs above it and, looking in those upper windows, you'll notice a pizza joint, a bar, a book store, and a fitness center on varying levels of the same building.




This picture shows a bit of it, too - if you look into the distance at the actual buildings, you'll see some more stacking going on. Cool plants, too.




A couple of pictures of a miniature-park by the roadside, that has a couple benches. The trees in Korea don't seem very happy on their own, many of them are held up or supported in one direction or another. Maybe they're trying to steer them, or maybe Korean trees have an awkward habit of growing sideways then falling down. I also saw what looked kind of like a tree injection in one (think miniature milk carton with a needle on the end, sticking upside-down into a tree near the base). So no idea, I'll have to ask someone, but there's great matrices of bamboo in this park holding them all together. I even saw some bamboo used to hold a bamboo plant someplace.






This is another pretty typical intersection, though a bit larger. The main building there is the Hyundai Department Store, which caters to the middle-to-upper class and foreigners, since it actually sells imported shtuffs (not very common here).




This is a somewhat typical view down a side-road. Again, things end up stacking a lot. The building straight ahead has a nice restaurant on Floor 1, a coffee shop on Floor 2, and a fitness center on Floors 3/4. Korean youth are into rooms for rent. So you may get together with some friends, and rent a room with PC's and play computer games by the hour. Or you may rent a small room to watch a DVD with some friends. Or a karaoke room, or a Playstation 2 room, etc.




Same intersection as before, during a crosswalk time. This is a peculiar intersection, as it stops all traffic and has diagonal-crossing, as well. Definitely results in some chaos, though it's faster for some, too.




Another fairly typical street view in Sinchon.




Street vendors are on every corner, and line the streets at night. Most of the food they sell is excellent, too. As a whole I've seen no crime, no fear of crime (kids out on the streets on their own at times, etc.), very little ripping-off (most prices are posted, and they use the same Arabic numbers we do), and no tipping is accepted whatsoever. I have to say, though, the more I see them around, the more I like the utterly immobilizing child-on-back wraps.




That's all for Sinchon for now - I'll try to upload the nighttime photos later on.