Lost Landscaping

What do you think it is? A park? A rock garden? I really have no idea, but someone went to quite a bit of effort to try to encourage people to walk through it.

One of my criticisms of Korea is that there is almost no effort made at landscaping; I think the concept truly doesn't exist here. It's sad, because so many urban/housing areas could look so much nicer with a bit of attention. Instead they are, as in the picture above, quite ugly.

Parks here have no grass, there are no sod farms, I have never seen a sprinkler system, there are no landscaping trucks with people out mowing and clipping . . . indeed, I have never seen a lawnmover in Korea.

This may suggest that I am from a country that has the surplus money/time/effort to spend on such unnecessary endeavors, and that may be true. But other countries, such as Japan, find beauty in small, carefully manicured gardens. It is rare to find such things here.

Korea is actively looking to "rebrand" itself, yet without a shift in consciousness concerning the 'look' of the country I think it will never truly succeed. I have read too many travel postings on the internet of people avoiding Korea due to its ugliness, and while that is a generalization there is some truth to it.

Maybe it comes from being a land that has often been invaded and fought over, a place whose people have had to work hard to survive. But this is a new age and some adjustment is needed.

Putting a roped walkway through an unsightly area and assuming that people will respond only demonstrates this need.