Saturday, August 16, 2014

Papa Francesco Changed Our Day

We tried to walk to the tour bus office this morning, but ran into 800,000 to one million of the Pope's faithful followers; needless to say we were swept up in the moment (and the crowd). A very large part of the center of Seoul was shut down this morning with a huge police presence--most of them looked in their late teens!

After a lunch of curry and dal, we walked the streets that an hour before had been filled with approximately 20% of the estimated 5 million Korean Roman Catholics. Most of the crowd control barriers had already been removed and the streets were clean as a whistle.

We will try for a city tour again tomortow, then on Monday back to the airport to retrieve our bikes from Korean customs and finally get this show on the road. We've ridden about 2000 miles and flown 6500 since leaving home 2 1/2 weeks ago.

Here are a few photos from our walk today:

 

 
You can see the Pope (in red) on the big screen

 

 

 


Protest against the Pope
 

You dial 119 in Korea--who's dyslexic?

The old contrasts with the new!

 

 

 

 

The empty altar still attracts the faithful

Need a hat?

 

I think she played with the water!

Flowers at a Buddhist shrine

 

Our hotel--looks like a BMW rider is eating at Mickey D's!

 

1 comment:

  1. Nice pix! So once more you cross paths with Francesco...first in Buenos Aires and now Seoul. Stalking?

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