After having lived in Japan for about a year and a half, I was pretty surprised to see the number of churches that I did throughout Korea. Japan is a very Buddhist country, whereas Korea began adopting Christianity hundreds of years ago, over which time it gained more and more popularity. Right now Korea sends more missionaries abroad than almost any other country, and I read an article in university a few years back that calculated the population of Korea is about 70% Christian. Living in small-town Japan you almost never see a church, and if you do it’s a Catholic one, so there was a bit of culture shock suddenly being exposed to such a large number of such diverse sites of Christian worship.
There’s a particularly famous church in Seoul called the Myeongdong Cathedral that was apparently one of the first Catholic churches in the area and eventually became the most significant architectural influence for churches across the country. I had actually never even heard of it until I met a young Hungarian woman on my DMZ tour who recommended it to me. My friend had apparently been there before, so he took me to see it. We didn’t go inside because there was a service going on, but we were able to look around a bit and take some pictures. It really is a stunning building, made entirely of red brick with an enormous clock tower jutting over forty meters toward the sky.
By the time we got to the cathedral it was almost sunset, so we grabbed a bite to eat afterwards and then headed for Seoul Tower. I was kind of surprised to learn that Seoul Tower is situated on a mountaintop instead of in the middle of the city like most famous Japanese and Canadian towers. In order to get to it you have to take a cable car up the mountain, which is pretty cool. Ever since my trip to Kitakyushu I’ve had a certain fondness for traveling by cable car.
We got to the tower at pretty much the perfect time, because the sun had just set and the city was lighting up beneath us. The tower itself was illumed by a soft purple light and looked beautiful from below.
There are some cafes and gift shops around the base of the tower and there’s also a museum you can visit, but my friend and I were eager to check out the view, which really is quite stunning. The entire city stretched out below you in glittering strings of colored jewels. I think I enjoyed it so much because when I went to Taipei 101 the weather was so cloudy that I didn’t get to see as much of the city as I’d have liked. And really that’s kind of surprising, because Seoul was so smoggy that I didn’t expect to be able to see much from the tower when we first arrived in the city.
There’s an outdoor area above the observation deck that seems to be dedicated to love. There’s a huge metal sculpture comprised of different English words that are arranged to form the shape of a heart. It’s hollow inside, so you can see through the gaps in the letters and beyond the sculpture while you’re looking at it. It was pretty interesting.
There’s also a huge fence covered with different colored padlocks. Couples can come and write messages on or decorate a padlock, then fasten it to the fence. I’m guessing it’s symbolic of making an unbreakable vow.
All in all it was a nice, chill day of sightseeing. It was good for us to get a break from the sad stories of the Korean emperors and the sobering reality of the DMZ. And I think it was especially good to get that break before seeing Seodaemun Prison and the War Memorial. Updates to come!
Nihonglish 