Song do

It bucketed rain all morning, and I made May laugh by always saying that it was getting brighter on the horizon when it wasn’t, but now, at 12:35, the rain has stopped and I’m going to go for one last bike ride along the canal to Central Park.  I finally know the most direct route, and if I pedal quite quickly, I can be in the park in about 20 min.  The park itself isn’t big but it’s a rabbit warren of paths, most of which I’ve ridden on now.  I’ve even got my favorite coffee spot in the outdoor mall where I stop and read on the ride home.  Most of Song do was reclaimed from the sea, like the polders in Holland.  The spot where the soldiers first disembarked for the Incheon landing during the Korean War is marked in Central Park, well up on dry land now.  Song do is being developed as an International Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) and many of the venues for the Asian Games in 2014 will be here, but although it’s much more finished and populated now than it was the last time I visited, it’s still far from capacity.  Many buildings are impressive skyscrapers but not fully occupied, and the streets are wide with functioning traffic lights that take ages to change but not many cars, so until the vision of it’s designers is realized, people in Song do just look left and right and cross whenever.  Especially on weekdays, you get the creepy feeling that you’re biking through a ghost town that hasn’t even got any ghosts in it yet.  I wonder if in 5 or 10 years the whole place will be as busy as the central section where Jay’s school now is.

I’m back from biking.  When I finish this entry, I’m going to take the subway to a station that has a big underground market.  I need an umbrella for our trip to Beijing, and I just want to look around.   

Cosmos growing along the canal

Women weeding in Central Park, the www, Korean style

Masks of the world.  When you get close to have a look, classical music begins to play

The plaque beneath the totem

My bike in Central Park

This marks the spot of the Incheon landing in the Korean War

Click on the picture if you want to read the inscription

If you click on the picture, you might be able to read the inscription, but the writing was not deeply engraved, so it's becoming illegible.  This bodes ill for the area as this statue and plaque symbolize the 2 companies that worked together to design and build much of Song do

Kayakers on the canal practicing for a race