Spotted at the scene of the Ceremony - pots upon pots of tulips. In his delightful travelogue "Korea, The Land of Miracles," Simon Winchester calls Seoul " a spectacularly ugly capital." He was here in the late 1980s. I can only imagine what it looked like back then. I could see changes for the better in less than four years of my sojourn here. Seous is not a spectaculary, or truth be told, not even fairly beautiful city, but it's slowly getting there. Koreans are trying to make their city neater and friendlier. Right now, the whole city seems to be exploding in all kinds of blossoms: tulips, forsithyas, azaleas, lilac... The spring was late and all flowers are coming out at the same time. It's quite nice. I don't think that Seoul (overall) deserves the description of a spectacularly ugly city. It's more like an ugly duckling turning into a teenage duckling with the hope of one day becoming a full grown handsome duck (a swan, frankly, I can't imagine).