Seoul, Korea

I've traveled to Seoul, Korea several times.  I think the first time was back in the mid-90s.  I had a chance to return - with a camera - in July of 2007.  I was in Korea to speak at the Korean Game Developer's Conference.  Here's a picture of me in action...trying my best to bust out some Korean phrases on the crowd:

Ummm...what did he say?

While in the middle of a major metropolis, I managed to visit a temple...big surprise (see Osaka entries).  This was the Pongeung Temple, in Seoul.  Here's a shot of one of the buildings - the colors were amazing:

Near the entrance to the temple, I found some sculptures of two turtles.  In Asia, turtles are considered very lucky.  The interesting thing about these two objects are the Chinese characters on top - they're not Korean.  As you may know, the Chinese actually ruled Korea about 500 years ago...these statues reflect that:

Inside the temple, there was a breathtaking scene of hundreds of small figurines/statues.  The entire wall (shown below) was about 20 ft. high...impressive:

In another building, the ceiling was equally amazing, as it was covered with really colorful lanterns.  Apparently, people can buy one of the hanging lamps for good luck...or perhaps just "rent" some good luck for the afternoon:

And just to prove that I was actually there - and didn't just buy a bunch of pretty pictures - I asked a fellow tourist to snap my picture (complete with briefcase):