Night in Seoul

May the fourth (on the fifth) be with you. (That will be relevant in a minute.)

Sorry about the trees

Seoul is a very exciting city in the day and the night. This past week, we've done some fun afternoon, evening, and night activities. One of the great aspects of Seoul is how safe it is. The streets are well lit, there are people about, and no one gives you any trouble, or gives you a second glance.

One of the city walls lit up at night

Seoul is a walled city. Perhaps I should say, part of Seoul is a walled city. Seoul was, for many centuries, a walled city. Modern Seoul extends way outside of those walls. But the walls still stand with four major gates and four minor gates.

Heunginjimun Gate, looking at it straight on

The other evening, Alrica and I headed over to Naksan Park. This park is just on the inside of the eastern city wall. Here the wall rises up the side of Naksan Peak. It's a great place to watch the sunset.

The camera doesn't quite capture the full majesty

Then we walked back down the mountainside along the wall. We reached Heunginjimun Gate, the major east gate of the wall.

Another view of Heunginjimun Gate

Last night, May 5, Seoul did another drone show as part of the Seoul Spring Festival. Hopefully, my picture above and my comment at the start of the post is making more sense to you. Yes, it was Star Wars themed. It wasn't on May the fourth, but May the fifth be with you too.

As before, it was spectacular. There were two types of images. One was the portrait. The drones took shape and lit up, and there were completely recognizable storm troopers, or Luke Skywalker (and it looked like Mark Hamill), or Darth Vader. (Or the Millennium Falcon, which maybe isn't a portrait, but it was the same sort of image.) The other was animation. The drones took a planar shape. And then by changing the colors that each one was emitting, they showed you a seen like watching the pixels of a screen show a movie. We saw the battle between Luke and Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back. Also, at one point, the drones took that planar shape to match the view from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. And then you saw the view through the window like you were in the cockpit.

Bad guys can't aim. But they look menacing.

My pictures have some trees in the way, as you probably noticed. But here is a link to a video on YouTube someone took of the show if you want to see what I mean.

The force is strong with Seoul.