Day 26 -- Cheonggyecheon Stream, DDP, Seoul City Wall Museum, Cheonggyechon Museum, Hanyang, and Myeongdong

This morning I took the subway to Mom and Dad's hotel, where I met up with them so we could go to the nearby Cheonggyecheon Stream. I have always loved the stream; it is full of interesting animals (from big fish to birds to turtles) and has murals on the walls in some portions. It was great weather to walk alongside the stream because it was cloudy and not too hot!




At one point, we took a ramp from the stream up to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza. I showed Mom and Dad some of the sights I saw last time I was there like the AI booths and the pre-exhibition of the artist that I met.


After the DDP, we walked along the stream for a while longer before stopping again at the Seoul City Wall Museum. We learned about the construction of the city wall, how it has been worn and torn down over time, and some of the restoration efforts. We also saw an exhibition about how people walk the entire length of the wall, sometimes students hoping to get good grades.

We went to Ssada Gimbap for lunch, where we had sweet beef gimbap, fried tofu gimbap, and vegetable gimbap, and then headed to the Cheonggyecheon Museum where we learned about the stream itself. At one point, it was viewed highly negatively by Seoul's residents as a place where trash and disease ran wild, and was thus covered up by an elevated highway. However, it ended up becoming a political issue during the 2002 election for the mayor of Seoul, and was ultimately restored back to its natural state.


A model of the old Cheonggyecheon Stream

We walked over to Hanyang University and the area surrounding it next. We took pictures at a photobooth and Mom and Dad tried their first bingsu (we got injeolmi bingsu and melon bingsu), before going to the Hanyang campus itself. We went into the cafeteria and into my old building where I took classes, and also stopped to take a picture alongside the Hanyang University mascot.




We took the subway back to Mom and Dad's hotel and rested for a while before going to Myeongdong Kyoja for dinner. We got their dumplings, kalguksu (a chicken broth soup with noodles that I got a few nights ago), and kongguksu (a thick and cool soup with bean noodles). After eating, we walked around Myeongdong and saw everything lit up before heading back to the hotel.



Outside of the hotel on weekends the Seoul Outdoor Library is open, so we stopped there to sit in the comfy beanbag chairs and admire the scenery before heading our separate ways for the night.



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