the roof is on fire

There was a fire in this building across the street last night. Christianne (the new roommie) and I spent the entire evening gawking and taking pictures of it from our apartment on the 6th floor. We were actually planning on just sitting around and watching TV all evening when we heard all these police sirens very close by. We ran to the window only to see a mass of fire engines and police cars crowding the street in front of our school. At that point we didn't see any actual flames, just a few puffs of smoke here and there emerging from the door of the toy store located on the bottom floor. More and more fire trucks came onto the scene and unloaded more firemen who rushed to hook up their hoses and attempted to gain access to the building. Soon they were prying through the iron gates and smashing through the windows of the shop, but just as they did so huge billowing clouds of smoke came pouring out of the building. The first thing the firemen did was to clear access to the source of the fire, which meant pulling out tons of various toys and tossing them haphazardly onto the sidewalk in front of the store. The scene continued like this for a good hour or so until the smoke subsided and the firemen apparently got the blaze under control. The air cleared and things once again returned to normal. The bystanders dispersed and the firemen loaded up their hoses and cleared out, leaving only a pile of charred and broken toys behind them...

This morning the windows of the store were boarded up, though passers-by still continued to pause along their way to wonder what might have happened to the store that used to occupy that space. I wonder if the shop will ever reopen? Probably. It doesn't seem like progress is so easily deterred here in Korea (at least not in a structural sense), so I'm sure that it will be back on its feet in no time. In any case it was the first time I have ever witnessed anything like that for real. No doubt this will be just another story I can add to the long list of anecdotes I have acquired during my stay here in Korea. And I'm sure it won't be the last.

And now, the pics: