Namdaemun Destroyed

It is 2 weeks ago today since Namdaemun, South Korea's first national treasure, was damaged in a fire. Before the arson, the wooden structure at the top of the gate was Korea's oldest wooden structure.

The gate had survived for 610 years, which included wars and invasions and numerous restorations. Thankfully in 2005 blue prints were made of the gate as a contingency against any emergencies that may damage it. A restoration is already planned which will cost at least £10 million and take about 3 years.

A 69 year old man has now confessed to setting it alight because he was upset about not being paid in full for some land he sold to developers. This seems a ridiculous reason to destroy one of Korea's best loved architectural structures. In 2006 the man tried to destroy one of Seoul's palaces.

It's been reported that the administration and firemen couldn't decide on how aggressively they should fight the fire and their lack of cooperation and too weak approach meant the fire took a stronger hold of the gate.

Luckily they managed to rescue the wooden tablet from the gate with the inscription "Sungnyemun" (a less common name for Namdaemun gate) in Chinese characters. Here is a picture I took of it next to one taken since it was removed (courtesy of The Korean Times). To see the gate collapsing and the tablet precariously being removed watch this video.

I luckily got to see the gate in November and it looked absolutely beautiful. See my blog entry 'The world's largest church and more...' Here are various pictures I took in November as well as ones taken a couple of days after the fire, and one whilst it's on fire from The Korean Times.

The world's largest church and more...

On Sunday I visited the world's largest Christian congregation, Yoido Full Gospel Church. The church is on an island in the middle of the Han River, the river that runs though the centre of Seoul. Inside it was similiar to what (I'd imagine) a baseball stadium looks like. It was HUGE!! There were tonnes of TV screens around for people to watch the service and outside the church building the service is projected in many rooms.



From the church I took a taxi (all forms of transport are v cheap here) to Namdaemun Market and the view as we crossed the river was incredible. It was early evening and the city lights were twinkling and you could see the full moon peeping out between buildings. I can't wait to get a super duper camera which would give such sights justice.

At Namdaemun Market I had a leisurely wander round the many interesting shops and stalls. A highlight was Namdaemun gate, Koreas National Treasure No.1, which lived up to its promise of being partically beautiful at night. The gate has been described as 'Asia's most dangerous tourist attraction' due to it being surrounded by 8 lanes of busy traffic!