Here’s the thing – Sadly, last night a fire destroyed this fantastic historical monument in Seoul – but the amazing thing was that the previous night I shot the above picture of the rear of this fantastic monument. I had intended to come back next week to take a few shots of the front of it using my tripod.

What is really surprising here is that I was reading a blog post from Scott Kelby on the “photographer’s school of hard knocks” (click HERE to view post) where Scott had decided to come back the next day to take a picture of a water lily. That night a severe storm hit the area and when he was able to finally return to the pond, the water lily was water logged.

As usual, I did what most people do and think “yeah, I know but it can’t happen to me” … well it did.

It is a very sad day for all of us living in Korea to see this happen to such a beautiful monument and I for one hope that it can be restored to it original glory.

Below is a picture of what Sungnyemun looks like today