Category: Seoul

Just another sign that winter is near:

Seoul observed the first frost and freeze of autumn Saturday, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).

The temperature dropped to 3.2 degrees Celsius in the capital during the morning as a cold front swept across the country, the weather agency said.

The first frost and freeze in Seoul this fall were spotted in the morning, arriving three days and 15 days earlier than last year, respectively, as well as two days and six days earlier than the long-term average.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

More bad news for Korean Air:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has designated a large plot of land owned by Korean Air in the center of Seoul as a public park.  
   
On Wednesday, the city government announced it would designate the Songhyeon-dong, central Seoul, site as a public park, changing it from the current “special-purpose complex.”  
   
The redesignation will not come into effect until the Anti‑Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) comes up with an arbitration plan between the city government and Korean Air, which opposes the designation. The procedure was initiated upon Korean Air’s request in August after Seoul City first proposed turning the land into a park for public use.  
   
Covering nine acres, the piece of land in Songhyeon-dong is located right next to Gyeongbok Palace. The company purchased it from Samsung Life Insurance in 2008 and had planned to develop a cultural complex.  
   
After years of failing to proceed with the project due to construction regulations in one of Seoul’s most preserved neighborhoods, the company announced that it would sell the plot of land along with other non-core property assets in February this year. It was part of a grand plan to secure funds amid a management crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  
   
Now that the site faces a future as a public park, it’s unlikely that Korea Air will be able to sell it for the high price it was looking for. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the public park designation pretty much means the only possible buyer of the property will be the Seoul city government. They will likely not pay what the land would of been worth if it was not designated a park.

Korean Air had been trying to maximize the sale of the property due to the ongoing loss of profits by the COVID-19 pandemic.

They should have put protester tents in the concept photo because that is what people are going to see mostly at Gwanghwamun Square:

Construction on Gwanghwamun Square will commence next month as the Seoul city government tries to turn it into something more like a park and less like a traffic island.    
   
“The roads on the east side of the square will be changed in a stage-by-stage manner so as to incur the least possible traffic difficulties,” the Seoul Metropolitan Government said in a statement Sunday. “The construction will start at the end of October.”  
   
The city government’s plan to revamp the square was first announced in 2018. It involved expanding the square westward and incorporating the southbound roads between the square and the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, and rerouting the roads in front of Gyeongbok Palace to incorporate that area into the square as well.  
   
Some experts warned of traffic nightmares and the public opposed earlier plans, leading to major changes.  
   
The southbound roads west of the square will still be incorporated, but not the roads in front of the palace. Instead the five lanes of northbound traffic on the eastern side will be expanded to three going in one direction and four going in the other. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This might be the first Chuseok in a long time without bumper to bumper traffic if this poll is to be believed:

 Three in four Seoul citizens don’t have any plans to visit their hometowns or travel long distances during the Chuseok holiday due mainly to fears of coronavirus transmission, a poll showed Saturday.

In the survey of 849 citizens aged 18 or older, 56.8 percent said they have no plans to travel long distances during Chuseok, while another 16 percent said they have canceled their holiday travel plans due to COVID-19.

Merely 12.4 percent said they have travel plans during the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, with 14.8 percent saying they are still undecided whether to travel.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what I always tell people is that the best time to go to Seoul is on Chuseok. It is easy to get around with little to no lines for anything because of how many people leave the city for the holiday. Apparently that will not be the case this year.

It looks like the Korean government in addition to using libel laws, will now sue the organizers of anti-government rallies:

The Seoul city government said Friday it plans to file a 4.6 billion-won (US$3.9 million) compensation suit against a pastor blamed for worsening the new coronavirus outbreak here by holding mass rallies in central Seoul.

Despite warnings against holding mass rallies, Jun Kwang-hoon, who pastors Sarang Jeil Church in northern Seoul, is suspected of leading anti-government protests in central Seoul in mid-August that thousands of people attended. Jun, himself, later tested positive.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is an interesting idea for an affordable single family home in Seoul:

Thirty three square meters of land doesn’t seem big enough to build a house on. But architect and educator Choi Min-wook designed a five-story residential building for himself, his wife and their cat on a tiny plot of land in the heart of Seoul.

The couple settled there in March last year. 

This year, their house won the best architecture award conferred by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. (…….)

Each of the house’s five floors were conceptualized to have a unique purpose: The first floor for parking, the second floor for reading, the third floor for cooking and dining, the fourth floor for sleeping and the fifth for bathing.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article the house cost 300 million won to construct.

This is probably going to be a new normal for schools this year in Korea, opening and closing depending on coronavirus levels:

The Ministry of Education on Tuesday said all schools in Seoul and its adjacent cities will resume in-person classes next week as the spread of the new coronavirus has slowed down recently.

The move, which will be enforced until Oct. 11, was made to keep with the relaxed social distancing guidelines announced Sunday amid a recent drop in new coronavirus cases and deepening economic difficulties.

High school seniors will also switch to a hybrid approach of remote and in-person learning from Monday, as they are wrapping up the normal academic schedule and seriously gearing up for the national university entrance exam slated for December. Schools are allowed to decide what form of instruction they will offer for high school seniors, the ministry said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like small business owners are about to get some relief from the coronavirus restrictions:

South Korea will relax business restrictions on eateries, franchise coffee chains and other facilities in the wider Seoul area, as the country decided Sunday to ease tougher anti-virus curbs in the region for the next two weeks.

The country decided not to extend the so-called Level 2.5 social distancing scheme, set to end at midnight, in the densely populated capital area, as the stricter curbs have been effective in slowing new virus cases, according to health authorities.

Starting Monday, the Seoul metropolitan area will be placed back under the Level 2 rules in the three-tier system, on a par with the nationwide alert level, until Sept. 27.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Well someone in the Seoul region is going to have to be host to a huge landfill since Incheon no longer wants to supply the land:

A waste disposal crisis is looming large in the Seoul metropolitan area for 2025 as Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province struggle to find alternative landfill sites that can replace the current one, according to environmental engineering experts.

In 2015, Seoul and Incheon cities, Gyeonggi Province and the Ministry of Environment set out to find a site to replace the current Sudokwon Landfill Site (SLS) which many claim is the world’s largest.

Opened in 1992, it receives an average of 12,000 tons of garbage daily, mostly home- and construction-related waste from Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province where half the country’s population lives. Years of meetings have been fruitless and a look into these reveals the complexity of waste management issues in Korea and conflicts of interest.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but authorities are considering holding a contest to see who wants the landfill in their city.