Another demonstration... once more

When you live in Seoul these days you might have become a little bit tired of all the demonstrations that can almost be seen daily especially around the Gwanghamun and City Hall area. One of my Korean class mates told us she lives around Gwanghamun and often couldn't use public transportation because the protesters blocked the streets and subway stations.
On Friday there was yet another demonstration. It wasn't clear to me if that was still about the US beef imports or something else. One of my colleagues told me it might be because of privatization plans of water and electricity companies by the government, driving the labor unions into the streets once more.
My plans to catch a taxi to get from my office in Myeongdong to Somerset Palace to meet up with some of my Swiss friends for a card game evening were baffled by barred streets from the police. Despite the clogged streets, I decided to walk in the humid summer heat of Seoul instead of taking the subway to get a glimpse of what was going on - even if that meant I was going to be very un-Swiss and arrive late to the card game. In the picture the police sits in file to wait for the protesters next to the artificial city stream Cheonggyecheon, which was built by the current president Lee Myung-bak when he was still mayor of Seoul. This is a very common picture to see when you live in Seoul nowadays.