Murky Monday

Just two days into re-blipping and I was hit with the gloomiest day ever. Today was possibly the darkest, dampest day I've ever experienced in Korea.
Korea is usually a pretty sunny place, even in winter, so days like this invariably remind me of home (even though home at the moment looks more like Siberia), where it never really seems to get light come winter.


An interesting thing about where I live, and I suppose Korea as a whole, is the mixture of the very old and the very new - often on each other's doorstep.
I'm just five minutes from the hectic hustle of downtown Gwangju, close to one of the city's universities, next to a perfectly laid, tree-lined walking path, and a stone's throw from a collection of newly-built apartment blocks.

Crisscrossed through it all though, is a labrynth of Hanok roofed old neighbourhoods, often accessed via alleyways not much wider than a man.
Like stepping back in time, even within this other world there is a mixture of the past and the present. Some homes are a patchwork of crumbling plaster, unfeasibly small, their rooves more corrugated plastic than tile. Others have been restored to their former glory though, smooth walls and wooden beams surround ornate little courtyards, and pristine red rooves glisten in the rain.
These larger, once coveted homes have now been surpassed by the more popular modern apartment blocks that cover the city, and so their owners are forced to renovate when maybe they wish they could sell.

I spent the afternoon drifting through these concrete mazes, haplessly trying to hold an umbrella in one hand and my camera in the other.
But for the smoke rising from a handful of homes, and the occasional burst of laughter, whole neighbourhoods felt deserted, and the lack of people and overcast skies meant I came home with a pretty poor pile of pictures; reminding me already how hard it can be to find a blip for every day.

In the end I went with the very first picture I took, two minutes after leaving the house.
A somber shot for a gloomy day.