Recently AJ and I paid a visit to the Cheonggye Stream in Seoul. The original stream was covered over with concrete because of sanitary reasons. The current one has been recently restored and is a manmade artificial stream built where the original stream flowed some years ago. If you would like to read more about the project then click on this Wikipedia link to read about it all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggye_Stream.We took the subway this time and came out the wrong exit so we had to work our way around on tera firma to find Cheonggye Square. Sometimes that can be harder than it sounds. Tall buildings block the view and even crossing the street in some areas is not allowed so one has to go back down into the subway to get to the other side of the road.
We went the morning after Korea lost the soccer game that sent them home from the World Cup in Germany so there were still soccer signs everywhere. Koreans like to think that they are big soccer fans but, in my opinion, their ferver is just a shameless display of fanatical nationalism. If they were such big fans of the game then the Korean National League wouldn't have such dismal attendance.
The stream is impossible to see from a distance at ground level. A road runs along each side and if you weren't paying attention you would never know it's there. A waterfall marks the entrance at Cheonggye Square and is quite pretty. The sidewalk leading down to the stream slopes down the side of the falls. There was not much of a crowd probably because everyone stayed up late to watch the game. Great, we planned it perfectly. I was surprised to find everything so clean. The temperature was just right. To steal a quote from Goldilocks it was not to hot and not to cold...it was just right. As we walked down the sloping sidewalk the stream stretched out in front of us as far as you could see with sidewalks serving as creek banks on each side. The tall buildings on each side sort of disapperared as we reached the ground level. An obvious engineering design to allow visitors to escape the ever present visuals that are the big city. They were unseen that is as long as you didn't look up.
Being from the country I enjoyed the sound of the running water over the rocks and even though it was fake I will admit that the engineers should get an A for realism. Some segments of the stream banks had grass growing amoung the rocks that were presumably placed as nature would have dropped them there. There was a nice semblance of realism to the whole thing but it still felt sort of cartoonish. All along the route people walked and took pictures. Under the shade of the bridges people sat and dangled their bare feet in the water. It's probably hard for most of my southern brethren to imagine but I would bet that the majority of the people in Seoul, especially the children, have never been swiming in a real creek or river. The kids were playing in the water along
the banks but if any of the "Stream Monitors"
came along they were hit with a whistle blast and told to get out. The "Stream Monitors" were all of the senior citizen class and wore a blue vest and around their necks hung a whistle. They did a good job keeping everyone in order. All they needed was a tin star and a fake six-shooter for effect.
AJ was no different than all of the other wet-footers because she had to dip her feet in the creek everytime she had the chance and she only had the chance when I allowed her. I can do that because I'm the Daddy. She would have walked in the water the entire way if she could have.
I let her get in the water with her shoes on so she would not have to keep taking them on and off. She liked that but was not used to walking around with squeaky shoes. She got her shorts wet too and was worried that they would get dirty. This would have been a perfect creek to tube down.The water was clear and there was very little trash floating down. Only a couple of plastic bags were guilty of heaving themselves into the slow moving water. Surely no people in this country would ever litter...yea right! Stone bridges allowed people to cross all along the creek and AJ had to cross back and forth on each one. It's funny what kids think are important and it's scary that we parents can't see why that the little things are so important, not just to them, but to us all. What I mean is that as we go through life with our kids and when they want to do something simple then parents have a tendence to say "no" when we should say sure go for it and have fun.
Everyday that we spend with our kids is a day that cannot be repeated ever and those days are limited. Each precious moment and each event with our children and loved ones all stack up to form our history as a family. Life is a one way street; there are no u-turns, no replays, and no rewinds so drive slow, enjoy the view and every chance that you get you should stop at all the fun-spots along the way.We were having a great time and then...one of us had to pee. I can't remember whether it was me, her or both of us. Needless to say there are no places to releive yourself along the Cheonggye Stream. We had to climb the stairs up onto the street and search for a restroom. After walking a considerable distance we finally found the public bathroom that ended up being in a pre-fab building in a parking lot. Whew, that felt good but they could make it a little easier to find. Maybe a neon sign leading the way or a series of well lit buttons that one could push starting a siren where you could follow the sound. Once we finished we went back down and followed the stream quite a ways down. Stopping along the way so AJ could get wet and play in the water. When we finally climbed back up to the street level we ate and did a little exploring until we finally caught a taxi for the trip back home. Here are a few more pictures of the stream and a few of street venders hawking their wares that we saw on the walk lafterwards.
