Day 5

Day 5 consisted of the Janes walk and the Seoul world city culture festival. The walk shows more of the negative sides of seouls constant flux of improving and trying to revitalize every part of their city. As is the case with Ihwa Mural Village. Seoul wanted to turn Ihwa village into an art and mural location which they succeeded in doing starting in 2006 much to the dismay of the residents. This dismay was caused by the overtourism that started plaguing the village as the murals brought in many foreigners. This all came climax in 2016 when a handful of residents defaced the 2 most popular murals in protect the the excessive tourism. Since this incident there has been a small number of murals added but in retort there has also been a number of anti-tourism graffiti. This shows an interesting dynamic between what the residents desire and what the city of Seoul desire.

After the tour through Ihwa we got to see the wall that surrounds all of central Seoul. It’s initial construction began during the reign of King Taejo in 1396 but there are 4 distinct periods in which it was built. The construction method during King Taejo reign was The construction method used was stone sections of the wall were built on mountainous terrain, and the rammed earth sections were built on flat land. The walls built during this time have stones that very widely from size shape.

The next period of construction was during reign of King Sejong in 1422. The walls start becoming a bit more uniform in there construction with natural stones being chiseled into kernel shapes.

After that was reign of King Sukjong in 1704 where the construction of the wall became more standardized which in turn made the wall stronger than before. The stones became on average 40-45cm in length and width.

Finally during the reign of King Sunjo in 1800 the wall got arguably the most uniform in its construction and well as the strongest it’s ever been. That was because Square 60cm by 60cm stone blocks were used with inscriptions in them with the province that constructed the wall. These provinces were responsible for the maintenance of there section of wall from then on out making the wall both more structurally sound but also well maintained.

I give overtourism a 1/10, Janes walk a 7/10 and Seoul’s long lasting protected a 8/10.