September 2008
Rows of light grey stretch like an unfolded fan. The vast swathes of buildings shrunk to miniature.
Bridges criss-cross the River Han as if stitched onto a sheet of blue fabric.
Couples attach padlocks with signatures, some with initials and dates, others with timely messages on the fence below the observation deck.
The enormity of the city is staggering.
I feel an unrivalled surge of exhilaration, never to be replicated, in this time of firsts.
A first trip to Asia, South Korea and to the capital of a country I had only admired from afar in films. It was incomparable to the images I observed on screen.
I stare out at the view from the Namsan Tower – clunkily branded the N Seoul Tower – from the peak of a mountain in the heart of Seoul.
Trying and failing to engrave a picture in my memory to fall back on and tap into the swell of elation again.
November 2019
The uniform rows of housing remain, the bridges sturdy carriers of the circulating heave of metal.
Vehicle lights form an immense single beam as if fused together in a unified illusion.
The scale still amazes, 11 years since I viewed the River Han from an elevated position.
The perspective is different, the feeling unaltered.
From a privileged position atop the 63 building, a pattern of gold tiles glittering in the fading sunlight, the landscape a boundless sweeping wave of concrete surrounding the water.
South Korea had been my home for five years and Seoul a limitless city of wonderment.
The city of a thousand snapshots, which beckoned and thrilled, pictures stored away yet still clear.
Stephen Kasiewicz 