Tag: Seoul

This might be interesting to check out the next time I am in Seoul:

Self-driving transit buses are expanding their presence in Seoul, as the city introduced, Wednesday, a new route in Yeouido, western Seoul. It is the city’s fifth autonomous bus service route.

At 12 p.m., a Hyundai Solati, a diesel minibus accommodating up to 13 people, took to the road around the National Assembly and it drove a round trip of 3.1 kilometers that featured six stops around the parliament. 

Two autonomous buses run every 30 minutes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Monday to Friday, but they do not operate on statutory holidays and weekends. 

Those who want to ride the bus need a smartphone app called TAP!, where users can pre-book a ride by setting their departure and destination.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is something you don’t see very often in Seoul:

Surveillance footage showing two elderly women allegedly stealing goods and electrical cords from moving boxes has set off a police investigation and online outrage.

The footage, taken on Friday in Seoul, shows the two women rummanging through boxes temporarily placed outside a building during a move, while moving company employees were busy with other boxes.

According to the online post from the victim, the boxes were temporarily placed outside a building in the process of moving to another building 10 minutes away.

The video footage shows the duo working together, one keeping lookout while the other stole the goods.

A neighbor who saw the women alerted one of the movers, and when the mover attempted to restrain them, they dropped the toilet paper rolls and paper cups they were carrying and ran away while the mover was on the phone talking to the owner.

The items stolen include wire cords, a tablet PC and camping equipment amounting to one million won ($769).

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

The Seoul Queer Culture Festival will go on as planned this year, but in Seoul’s Euljiro neighborhood:

This year’s Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) will be held as scheduled on July 1 in downtown Seoul’s Euljiro area due to the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s disapproval of its event taking place at Seoul Plaza, according to the festival organizer, Wednesday.

“The (festival’s) use of Seoul Plaza was disapproved by the discriminatory administration of the Seoul Metropolitan Government,” Yang Sun-woo, chairperson of the SQCF organizing committee, said during a press conference in Seoul, Wednesday. “The 24th SQCF and parade will be held in the Euljiro 2-ga area.”

The SQCF, which was launched in 2000 with around 50 participants in the capital’s northeastern Daehangno area, grew in size over the years, eventually settling in Seoul Plaza in 2015, one of the biggest public squares in the capital. This will be the first edition of the event to not be held there since 2015 except for the two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the city government rejected the committee’s request to use the city square in favor of a youth concert by the Christian Television System (CTS) Culture Foundation instead. 

In response, the committee filed a notice of assembly for the Euljiro area to secure an alternative venue. One month prior to the event, 64 activists and supporters took turns lining up at three police stations in the jurisdiction of the locations for 89 hours to receive police authorization for use of the public space. As permission is granted on a first-come, first-serve basis, they had to compete with Christian activists also lining up to book the same spaces in order to deny them a venue, according to Yang. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

These systems that send out emergency notifications over text message may be more trouble than they are worth:

These images show mobile phone alerts sent out in the wake of North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle on May 31, 2023. (Yonhap)

The Seoul city government on Wednesday erroneously sent out an emergency alert advising citizens to prepare for evacuation after North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle.

The mobile phone alert was sent to all Seoul citizens at 6:41 a.m., shortly after the Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired what appeared to be a space launch vehicle. But the interior ministry retracted it at 7:03 a.m., saying the alert was sent by mistake.

“We inform that the alert warning issued by the Seoul Metropolitan City at 6:41 a.m. was an erroneous issuance,” the interior ministry said in a separate mobile phone alert.

A ministry official said that Seoul is not an area where an alert has been issued.

The Seoul city government said it was looking into why the alert was set off.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but at least people in Seoul are so desensitized to North Korean missile launches that they did not go into a mass panic like what happened in 2018 when a similar false text message missile alert was issued in Hawaii.

It will be interesting to see what venue they are able to book this year for the SQCF:

A giant rainbow flag is carried aloft by participants at the Seoul Queer Culture Festival in Seoul Plaza, central Seoul, June 1, 2019. The event was joined by over 180,000 LGBTQ people and supporters combined. Courtesy of Seoul Queer Culture Festival organizing committee

For an estimated 2.5 million Koreans identifying themselves as sexual minorities, the annual Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) is the long-awaited “national queer holiday,” a rare occasion where they feel safe and encouraged to gather and express their identity.

The festival, which celebrates its 24th anniversary this year, started in 2000 with 50 participants on a road in northeastern Seoul’s Daehangno area. The event grew to over 135,000 participants last year, and despite opposition and interference by conservative Christians, it seemed to have nestled at Seoul Plaza, one of the biggest public venues in the capital.

However, the festival now has to find an alternative venue this year, after the Seoul Metropolitan Government earlier this month disapproved the use of the city square for the upcoming festival. 

This two-decade evolution of the SQCF has been a “journey of finding a public space where the country’s LGBTQ communities can be and show who they are,” Yang Sun-woo, the chairperson of the SQCF organizing committee, said during an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.

Yang, an activist at the Korean Sexual Minority Culture and Rights Center, has been taking part in the SQCF since she joined it in 2005 as a staff member of the Korea Queer Film Festival, a part of the SQCF. She has been in her current position since 2015.

Amid opposition from conservative Christians and merchants, the festival had to find one venue after another across the capital ― from Daehangno to Itaewon to Cheonggye Stream to Sinchon ― to house the growing queer community and its supporters, she said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.