Fireworks Fail

My actual view of the fireworks

 A friend and I decided to try to see the international fireworks festival Saturday night. Worst idea I've had in a long time. We had heard from many people to not even bother going to Yeoido, so we tried to watch from the opposite side of the river around Ichon at the Hangang park there. When we arrived at Ichon station at 7:30 (when the fireworks were supposed to be starting) it took us 15 minutes just to get out of the station because there were too many people jammed around the four turnstiles to get out and it all bottlenecked.

Once we got out, the fireworks were coming from behind the station, in the opposite direction of the park. But we followed all the people trying to go to the park anyway. The closer we got the more people leaving we started to see. We asked one woman if it was worth going to the park, and she said you could see well, but there was a lot of smoke there. We continued on, but eventually we came to a stop. Being short often means I don't know what's going on, but luckily my friend is on the tall side and told me what was going on ahead of us... to get into the park you had to go through a tunnel. Basically, imagine 100,000 Koreans (not really exagerating either) trying to go through one pedestrian tunnel at the same time... yea... not pretty... so we turned around and tried to find somewhere else to watch....

A zoomed in view of the fireworks from my viewing place

Eventually we settled on watching from between apartment buildings over the trees. What a disaster. We were only able to see the biggest fireworks, and then only part of them. Then going home was even worse. Going to Ichon station wasn't even an option there were so many people. So we tried waiting  for the bus. No, too much traffic. The bus wasn't moving either. Finally we walked from Ichon to Yongsan. On a normal day it might only take 15-20 minutes, but it took 30 because it was just so crowded that we couldn't walk quickly.

Anyway. Big disappointment all around, I've learned my lesson about seeing fireworks in Seoul... Did anyone else get a good view?