Cheonggyecheon (Dongdaemun market)

[singlepic=602,250,250,right]We live about 800 meters from the Dongdaemun area of 청계천 (cheong-gye-cheon or clean stream). We frequent the area for walks specially on hot summer days. The Cheonggye stream is a six kilometer stretch. Here you can find foot bridges, stepping stones, fountains and falls, performance stages, art galleries, fishes and ducks and hundreds of pigeons. It’s like an oasis in the middle of a busy city.
Cheonggyecheon’s restoration started in June 2003 and it was formally opened in 2005. If you’re a regular Discovery Channel viewer, you’d probably seen the special documentary on this. It’s always been a stream where people bath and wash clothes for centuries until the government covered it in the late 1950’s and built an elevated highway in the late 1960s. The restoration is one of President Lee Myung Bak’s projects when he was the mayor of Seoul.
Here are some pictures I took one hot summer day. We walked from our apartment to the Dongdaemun market area of Cheonggyecheon. Aside from the stream, you’ll also find pictures of the area around Dongdaemun – the gate itself, the Ehwa University Hospital where NFL star Hines Ward was born, the statue of Jeon Tae Il who burned himself in the 1960s, the Pyeonghwa Sijang (a famous used books market where Hyun Bin’s character in the drama Snow Queen looked for the book with the same title). Some parts in the television drama “Lovers in Prague” were shot here.
The Dongdaemun shopping area and the Cheonggye stream are accessible by subway. There are two subway stops nearby – Dongdaemun station (Line 1 and 4) and Dongdaemun Stadium station (Lines 2, 4 and 5).