Seoul and San Francisco reaffirmed their friendship as a San Francisco mayoral delegation visited the Korean capital for a three-day trip starting Tuesday, donating a symbolic stone for the construction of the "Garden of Gratitude" to mark the 50th anniversary of their sister-city relationship.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Thursday, the delegation led by San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie met with Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and held a stone donation ceremony for the Garden of Gratitude.
The donated stone had been preserved for the reconstruction of City Hall after it was damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The earthquake and ensuing fires destroyed more than 80 percent of the city at the time, but rapid recovery efforts allowed most of the city to be rebuilt by 1915, and San Francisco City Hall became a symbol of urban resilience.
The stone used in the ceremony is part of marble pledged by San Francisco, with the full donation to be delivered to Seoul at a later date. The Seoul city government plans to use the stone in a sculpture within the Garden of Gratitude to express appreciation for international support following the Korean War while communicating the solidarity between the two cities to citizens.
For the Garden of Gratitude project, seven countries including Greece completed stone donations as of September last year, while Sweden and Australia have expressed their intent to donate and are preparing relevant procedures.
The San Francisco delegation's visit commemorates the 50th anniversary of the sister-city agreement signed in 1976 and marks Mayor Lurie's first official overseas trip. The delegation included about 20 figures from the economic, cultural and tourism sectors, who experienced Seoul's policy sites and urban culture firsthand.
On the first day of the visit on Tuesday, the delegation toured the Myeong-dong area, exploring major shopping destinations such as Olive Young, Daiso and Musinsa, as well as street food and "yajang" outdoor dining culture, to examine Seoul's tourism competitiveness.
On Wednesday, the delegation attended a sports exchange event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the partnership at Gocheok Sky Dome, where they watched a Korean professional baseball game. Mayor Lurie threw the ceremonial first pitch, while Stephen Revetria, president of San Francisco Giants Enterprises, took the ceremonial first at-bat. At the welcome reception that followed, Kim Byung-min, Seoul's vice mayor for political affairs, along with officials from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, attended the game together and experienced Korea's ballpark culture.
The Seoul city government assessed that the visit from the San Francisco delegation served as an opportunity to further deepen friendly relations between the two cities. "To commemorate the 50th anniversary of our sister-city relationship with San Francisco, we will build even stronger friendly relations between our cities through various exchange and cooperation projects," said Kim Soo-duk, Seoul's director general for global urban policy.
