Amazing fact about Seoul name: for a long time Chinese name of the city sounded close to "Chinese fortress". In 2005 Korea asked China to change the name and Chinese agreed! Korean name remained unchanged.

Seoul is a big city. Almost 20% of the country lives there.

Skyscrapers are everywhere. It's not a single block of it, but it's spread throughout the city.

Somewhere in between there are small tiny houses.

Temples just like in Busan are surrounded with lights. Of course the lights are electrical.

There is something like Beijing hutong block. Though it seemed to me lifeless and less interesting. There was no action in it. Just restaurants and souvenir shops.

More skyscrapers.

Plastic food. Just like in Japan.

Was caught by strongest shower. Fortunately there was a roof to hide.

Street food. Very (VERY) expensive!

NANTA show performers. It's an interesting world famous show. Something like drum-performance, but they use any subject as a thing to extract sound. It's not necessary to visit Seoul to enjoy the event, they have frequent tours all over the world, so it makes sense to check your city posters. They might be already there.

Skyscrapers are much more beautiful in a sunny day.

It's really a pleasure to walk in places like these, especially when it's sunny.

There are many important castles and temples in Seoul, however almost none survived in original state. Due to continuous Japanese invasions most of them were demolished. So visitors can see reconstructions build around a hundred years ago.

A lot of visitors are dressed in national Korean clothes. Of course they're tourists, not locals, though many of them look pretty much Korean (:

The secret is that there is no entrance fee if you're in national costume. There are a lot of places where you can rent it and it's much cooler than to buy a ticket! (even though it's a bit more expensive)

This option is really popular!

Korean child.

Korean gardens are much closer to Japanese, and, in my humble opinion, much more beautiful than Chinese gardens. The main attention is paid t the plants, not the buildings or stones.

However buildings are built in Chinese architecture. It seems like Chinese came to Korea, built all the castles and went back home. I expected that Japanese influence will be much stronger in this area.

Accidentally passed by Korean music performance. I didn't really like it as it doesn't seem smooth and beautiful to my ear, but these guy played a very cool jazz thing in between, it was amazing!

Some political demonstration.

Police buses. There were a lot of officers over there, but they didn't have any weapon (even baton), they didn't touch people or limit entrance or whatsoever. Russian police should learn the best practices.

Homeless people. There are a lot of the here.

Genius meeting points with seating places in metro stations. Before the entrance to the station! Why there are no such points in our subway system?

Late night Seoul.