Medical Tourism

These guys defying gravity look like they could be the next customers of the building they're cleaning.

But paradoxically, they risk much less than pedestrians walking at the feet of this Samsung Gangbuk Hospital : I've already mentioned this tricky crossroads where Donuimun will be restored*.

In a city remarkably equipped for physically challenged people, the direct surroundings of medical institutions can be surprisingly dangerous. Of course, you always have to be careful for customers walking in the hospital's PJs, sometimes even hundreds of yards away with their IV poles, but it's also a matter of accessibility, at times poor, or of parking lots that are not really accident-proof.

Each time I ride my bicycle to Yonsei University, I have to be extra careful when I pass in front of Dongseo Oriental Hospital. Not just because of the patients : traffic at the entrance is at best messy and generally dangerous.

Those exceptions shouldn't last too long in a city where medical tourism keeps booming, particularly in Gangnam-gu, which advertises massively about its state of the art infrastructures.

Seoul Village 2011
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* "Donuimun Restoration and Sadaemun Resurrection" - I took this picture on my way to Gyeonggyojang (soon to reopen).