m̌ ḫ's photos

Afternoon light falls between the tall glass towers of Samseong-dong, picking out straight lines, sharp corners and long shadows on the street. Office workers slip out for coffee, students and shoppers weave between buses and cars, and the air is full of quiet movement rather than noise. This part of Gangnam is a mix of business high-rises, modern apartments, cafés and small restaurants, all set along broad roads and neat sidewalks, so the city feels orderly yet very alive. Walking here, you sense how strongly Seoul looks to the future: clean streets, clear signage, efficient transport and an architecture that feels closer to European business districts than to the image of “old Asia”, but with its own fast, focused rhythm.

The Small Carpathians (Malé Karpaty) form the western boundary of the Carpathians, cloaked in extensive beech woodlands. Beech trees are remarkable architects — they create their own interior world with distinct light, temperature, and moisture that shapes all life within the forest. The European beech (Fagus sylvatica) in the Carpathians holds exceptional global significance as a living record of post-glacial forest evolution. During Ice Ages, beech survived in small refuge areas in the southern and eastern parts of Europe, then began spreading northward and westward after the last glaciers retreated around 11,000 years ago — a colonisation process still continuing today.

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