Category: Seoul

It looks like smokers in Seoul are going to have less option of where they can smoke:

A three-month grace period ends today for violators of a smoking ban at all restaurants, coffee shops and Internet cafes, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tuesday.

From today, anyone who violates the ban will be fined 100,000 won ($90), while the owners will have to pay 1.7 million won ($1,500).

When the government implemented the ban in January, it gave a grace period until the end of March, and has since tried to raise public awareness about the smoking ban.

“Smoking in those places has not been strongly controlled to date. We only fined owners who maintained smoking tables for the last three months,” said a ministry official. “However, the ban will be strictly applied from April.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see how strictly this ordinance is enforced.

Shown is the Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in downtown Seoul on March 20, 2015. The plaza opened on March 21, 2014, to contain a multiuse park, a fashion plaza and an underground mall with the aim to serve as South Korea’s as well as Asia’s fashion hub. (Yonhap)

An example of how this story has gone viral is that over in the Forums where I posted this article it received nearly 2,000 page views yesterday:

It’s that time of the year again that if you can spend time in Seoul instead of trying to exit the city with everyone else because it will feel like you have the city to yourself:

The mass migration for Seollal, or the Lunar New Year’s Day, has begun.

More than 16 million Koreans are expected to hit the road during the five-day holiday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Expressways were clogged and airports and railway stations busy at the start of the traditional pilgrimage for family reunions and holiday-making trips.

The number of travelers is predicted to peak Thursday, Seollal, with 7 million likely to move.

Information on less-congested roads and other traffic situations is available through broadcasts, the ministry’s website (cyber.mltm.go.kr/traffic) and its mobile website (m.mltm.go.kr/traffic).

The government has increased the number of express buses, trains, flights and ferries to reduce traffic congestion during the holiday.

For Seoul citizens planning to return late Friday or Saturday, the city government will extend the operating hours of subways and intra-city buses to 2 a.m.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Hyundai is thinking big with the construction of what they hope will be a landmark building in Korea:

Hyundai Motor Group began negotiations with the Seoul city government over the construction of a 115-story headquarters at the Samseong-dong plot in Gangnam it purchased from Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) for 10.55 trillion won ($9.6 billion) last September.

According to the city government Sunday, Hyundai Motor has submitted a plan to build the highest building in the country at 571 meters (1,873 feet), 16 meters higher than the Lotte World Tower.

Currently, the country’s highest skyscraper is the North East Asia Trade Tower in Songdo, Incheon, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

That building, which was finished last July, has 68 floors and is 305-meters high. Offices occupy the first 35 floors, and the remaining floors are used as a hotel and for restaurants.

The world’s fifth-largest automaker said it wants to build a landmark dubbed the Global Business Center at the Kepco site in Gangnam when it purchased the land last year.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Photo: Andong Church (left) and old KCIA surveillance house, Bukchon http://t.co/ZPaKxoegCI

— The Marmot's Feed (@rjkoehler) December 16, 2014

Korean street market in 1960, probably near or in Seoul. The exact location has not been positively identified yet. The photographer, my father Leroy Smothers, did not label the 35 mm slide this image was scanned from. He traveled all over South Korea, so this could be somewhere other than Seoul. (We lived 1960 near Itaewon, south of Seoul.) [Bill Somther’s Flickr page]

I wonder if the local government will send in thugs to chase people out of this shantytown like they have done in the past in other neighborhoods in Seoul to get them redeveloped?:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and Gangnam District Office have agreed to resume a long-stalled project to develop a shanty town in the most affluent district in Seoul, officials said Friday.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and Shin Yeon-hee, head of the district office, will hold a joint press conference next week to announce details of the agreement, an SMG official said.

The SMG and the district office have long been at odds over how to develop Guryong Village, considered the last remaining urban slum in Seoul, and how to compensate the residents.

“The SMG has decided to accept the district office’s demands regarding how to develop the area,” the SMG official said.

The SMG’s change of stance was prompted by a fire in the village on Nov. 10 that left one person dead and destroyed the homes of 136 people. It was the eleventh fire in the village since 2009.

“We understood the urgency for the government to take swift action, since political gridlock means nothing when people die and lose their homes,” the official said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is the first time I have ever heard of a woman in Korea coming up on sexual harassment charges:

Park Hyun-jung, president and CEO of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, is under fire over allegations that she sexually harassed employees, verbally assaulted them and abused her power in hiring and promotion decisions.

Insiders of the Seoul-government funded orchestra say Park tried to touch a male employee’s genital area in October last year by pulling him by his necktie at a public dinner gathering after drinking an excessive amount of alcohol.

“From the look of you, I think you will do well as a (bar) hostess,” she was also quoted as saying to a female employee during a meeting.

A petition filed against her reveals that Park told two other female employees at the meeting that they should serve important guests by sitting next to them and doing the duty of bar girls.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but Park has been on the job for almost two years and was the first woman appointed to lead the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra despite having no musical or orchestra experience in the past.

The Best Hostels in Seoul (Itaewon) http://t.co/E1xOKtp181 via @Drewbinsky7

— Christine Kaaloa (@grrrltraveler) November 26, 2014