"8 months in Seoul" a Seoul Travel Page by andrew_in_ilbon

Seoul is in many ways a tough town.

Shivering through its freezing Winters, several times almost destroyed by war and occupation, and living under the constant threat of an attack from the North, it has not only survived, but thrived.

Today the city stretchs on, seemingly forever, an endless sprawl of choked freeways, highrise apartments, residential neighborhoods and sterile, slightly secondrate shopping centres.

But it is still Korean to its core.

Seoul-ites are warm, generous, pushy, brutally direct, quick to laugh and to anger, and often maddeningly conservative . They love God, they hate Japan, women wear lipstick and men join the army (they have to).

At night the city is lit up by a galaxy of red neon crosses beaming down from thousands of church spires.

The streets are filled with children playing, swarms of shoppers and commuters push by, rich people plough through the crowds in their Mercedes. In Summer, restaurants move plastic tables onto the footpath and people sit til late at night drinking beer. Its rough and its vibrant.

I spent 8 months in Seoul in 2004, and although it was a tough time of me, I look back on it now with surprisingly warm memories of the city and its people.