World Peace

Yesterday, before we finally received a visit from the Doctor, I wandered just east of the hospital to the Olympic Park. It was a beautiful peaceful park surrounding many of the venues from the '88 Games.

This is a picture of the World Peace Gate at one of the main entrances to the park. The way I see it we need about 6 billion people to walk through this gate. I clipped this explanation of the paintings from a Korean website:

The Paintings of Four Spirits
With straights and curves as the basic lines, blue and red (symbolic of Korea's flag, Daeguk) were used as the main colors to represent the concept of Um and Yang (yin/yang), the Oriental symbols representing the two opposites of the universe, as well as the spirit of creativity. Choojag (a spirit shaped as a red phoenix that guards the south), Hyunmoo (a spirit shaped as a black turtle that guards the north), Bakho (a spirit shaped as a white tiger that guards the west), and Cheongrong (a spirit shaped as a blue dragon that guards the east) are the four spirits appearing in the mural paintings of Koguryo era mounds. The images of their ascension to heaven signifies life against the body and freedom against spirit, in addition to the dauntlessness and strength of the Korean people. This visionary expression serves to ensure the balance between the ceiling and the rest of the gate. The strong coloring represents both the Danch'eong color of Korea's ancient buildings and the dignity, splendor, and grandeur of this memorial gate.

As I wandered through the park I found small garden areas where I could sit and reflect. Here are a couple more views.

The first is a seating area along the pathway with a very cool breeze and amazingly quite in the middle of this city of 10 million. The second is from the site of the ancient Fortress Mong Chon that looked out over the City in a defensive position high above. The haziness is from yellow sand blowing over from the Gobi Desert in China. Andrew's hospital is on the left of the cluster of buildings in the center of the picture.