Thursday, June 16, 2011

Han River in Seoul

Probably one of the most beautiful places I have visited in Seoul is the Han River. It flows directly through Seoul and is often used in terms of direction... i.e. "It's above the river". We always pass over the Han when going to Seoul by train but up until recently we have not actually spent a day by the river. This past week we decided to embark on an adventure taking our bikes on the subway to the Han river. Usually it takes about 90 minutes on the subway to get to Seoul but about once every hour the "express" subway comes through and you can hop on it and be in Seoul in an hour for only 1,800 won (roughly $1.65 with the current exchange rate).

It was such a beautiful day and the weather is definitely starting to get hot here in Korea, I think its only a matter of days before we are into the full fledged sweltering heat of the Korean summer.

Once reaching the Seoul area we got off at "Singil" (신길) on line 1. There was a nice path over the walking bridge and through Yeouido to get the the Han River.




And for the record, Korean kids have the best playground equipment...I think Zak would agree...


Once we got to the Han river we enjoyed the nice bike path along side of it where you will often spot the natives in their elaborate over the top biking outfits to go along with their ridiculously expensive bicycle, which is only used/worn to bike on this bike path. Its status to have a nice bike and matching riding team here in Korea, I am thinking Zak and I need to come up with a team name and have shirts made. 

A few photos on the Han:


The Han is also host to many festivals during the year including the one we visited earlier this year, the Hi Seoul Festival:





If you get a chance I would pack a lunch and spend the day relaxing at the Han!

                       Hope you are enjoying your week, thanks for reading! xxx