Up in the Sky

A trip to the skypark in Seoul today added to that 'full circle' feeling - we were last here the day before we left Korea.

The park is high above the city, on what appears to be just another of the many mountains dotted around the city. In reality though, it houses its very own dirty little secret.
The 'mountain' is in fact a giant rubbish pile, the result of years of badly regulated landfill, an epic amount of trash produced by one of the world's most populated cities.
This awful blight on the city's landscape was forever changed when Korea won the right to co-host the world cup, along with Japan.
Eyebrows were raised when the powers that be announced that Seoul's stadium would be built adjacent to the land fill site.
As it turned out though, it was part of a brilliant urban renewal plan, involving the creation of six interlinked parks around the stadium, including one on top of the trash pile.

Metres of soil were piled onto the giant mound, as wildlife began to return to the area. Trees were planted, grass seeded and paths made.
The clever tranformation was complete with the addition of small wind turbines that power the parks lights, and the potentially dangerous methane gas created by the park's core is syphoned off to power the football stadium and surrounding apartments.

It's now a world away from its filthy beginnings. Many birds and small mammals call it home. We spotted a few grouse as we wandered up the path and, miraculously, the endangered wide mouthed frog is now a resident too.


I thought I'd blipped this bowl-like sculpture before - I took a lovely shot of it the last time we were here. As a result I payed little attention to it today, only taking the half arsed picture above. Turns out I blipped something else entirely last time though, one of my favourite shots of the missus.