It may serve as Seoul’s secondary train depot, but say the words ‘Yongsan Station’ and the first thing anyone thinks of is the sprawling electronics and technology market occupying the neighborhood to the west, an agglomeration of shops and buildings so large, so jumbled, and so exhaustive in its offerings that anyone who is not either a rabid technophile or a veteran explorer of the market may, by the end of a visit, find themselves entertaining fantasies of trashing their toaster and moving to a cabin in Idaho.  Tech-heads, on the other hand, may feel they’ve died and gone to heaven.

While not quite a Luddite, I definitely fall into the former category, and after a few tepid visits to the market in the past I was hoping that this visit, with more time and less purpose, would finally be the one to, if not quite give me a sense of comfort with the place, at least ease my sense of panic when I go there.  But first, I had to get out of the station, which offers its fair share of reasons not to.

If you take the subway to Yongsan, you’ll exit through the station’s central hall, a bright, cavernous space crisscrossed by singles and small groups on their way to or from a train.  Beneath the molecule and UFO-like sculptures hanging from the ceiling, other passengers sit around snacking on ice cream, watching one of the station’s TVs, or merely staring into space waiting for their boarding time as the echoing announcements of a delayed train bounce off the walls.

After exiting through the central doors, a wide corridor separates the station from the I’Park Mall.  Before going inside, though, I walked up the steps just outside the exit doors to what’s called the Event Park, an open plaza that, for the moment at least, held a small ice rink.  It was slowly melting in the early March sunshine, but about eight or nine determined girls continued to cut their way through the slush.

Walking back down, I entered the first floor of the I’Park Mall, which is actually the third floor as ground level is a couple stories down.  Immediately I was greeted with solicitations of ‘Hello, camera.  Digital camera.  Mp3,’ from the eager salesmen whose booths line the fluorescent-lit aisles.  For many people the I’Park Mall is the first (and sometimes only) encounter they have with Yongsan’s electronic commerce, and although it’s more convenient and certainly nicer than the market proper, prices here tend to be higher as well, and the salespeople can be a bit on the pushy side.  The 3^rd floor holds mostly cameras and mp3 players, the 4^th floor more of the same, along with home appliances like TVs and vacuums, and the 6^th and 7^th floors laptops (including a small area labeled ‘Laptops for Foreigners’).  If you turn back towards the station you’ll escape the gadget glut for a bit and end up in regular old mallsville: clothes, housewares, food courts, etc.

Keep taking the escalators up, though, and on the top floor you’ll come to the rather unassuming looking E-sports Stadium (전자경기장), where the battles in Korean computer gaming’s top league, the SK Planet Starcraft Pro League, take place and are filmed for broadcast on the TV channel dedicated to the video game.  I’d been wanting for quite some time to watch some professional gaming live, not out of any particular interest in Starcraft (of which I have none), but because when one is in a foreign land it’s both edifying and entertaining to observe the natives as they pursue their traditional sport.  I’ve been to a bullfight in Seville, an intra-city soccer derby in Rome, a muay thai bout in Chiang Mai, and a shopping mall in Singapore.  Starcraft in Seoul was naturally next on the list.

Luckily enough, I happened to stumble upon a competition taking place.  The arena(?) is about the size of a large café, and was packed – standing room only.  The crowd, which was 90% male, either sat in the rows of gray plastic chairs at the front or merely stood around, shoulder to shoulder, in the open space at the back.  On either side of the room, in front of banners bearing the names and logos of the League teams (Samsung KHAN Pro Game Team, Air Force ACE, CJ ENTUS), teammates of the present competitor sat in more plastic chairs, watching the action and awaiting their turn.

Their gaze was directed at an enormous video screen at the front of the room that broadcast the action (if that’s the right word), occasionally cutting away for brief shots of the competitors’ faces, which remained perfectly inscrutable throughout the match.  The competitors, dressed in tracksuits bearing the logos of various sponsors, like a NASCAR driver’s jumpsuit, sat in large angular glass boxes at either end of an elevated stage.  Between them a trio of announcers kept up a rapid-fire running commentary, and although the players wore headsets I wondered if the play-by-play still seeped in, which would provide the strange sensation of hearing your decisions analyzed and critiqued as they were being made.

Before even the gameplay, the first thing I noticed when I walked in (Which you can just do, by the way.  Admission is free.) was how incredibly quiet the crowd was.  For anyone who’s been to a baseball or soccer game here, or even just watched on TV, you know how loud and enthusiastic Korean sports fans can be.  The audience here, though, conducted themselves exactly the way one does when one watches TV or sits in a PC bang: largely silently, minimal blinking.  In the ten minutes it took for the two competitors to build up their armies from the time I entered, the crowd, so much a part of the live sports experience, did almost nothing.  It wasn’t until the first attack that a very mild Ooooh rose up from some of them and one guy off to my left, looking for some sort of outlet for his excitement, hopped up and down in place a bit.

And yet, as I watched and as things vaguely started to make more sense, I began to get the appeal of the game, not just as a game but as a spectator sport.  Its draw lies in the excitement of watching a war where something is at stake, but nothing matters.  There’s no carnage and no consequences, but there are all of the things that make battle entertaining: strategy, conflict, the victor, the vanquished.  I love those TV shows that chart out and reenact the strategies, the mistakes, the gambits, and the sheer dumb luck that led to historical military conflicts turning out the way they did.  Watching how an army of Zergs overruns an army of Terrans in real time isn’t all that different from watching how the English fleet did the same to the Spanish Armada or how the French outlasted the Germans at Verdun.

Finally, after about 20 minutes, a brief round of clapping and a few tentative cheers went up.  It was over.  The guy with the red things had defeated the guy with the blue things.

Turn left out of the station exit instead of walking directly into the mall, and you’ll arrive at the top of a large flight of steps leading down to Station Plaza, a paved space with some benches and a giant metal ring off to the right.  From the top of the steps, a couple stories up, you can see several skyscraping apartment towers in the distance, their newness and shine a match for the structure you’re currently standing in, with its spotless waiting room, E-Mart and CGV Imax.  In the near distance, though, just across Hangang-daero-23-gil (한강대로23길) from the plaza, things look quite different.  Several shuttered businesses are visible, along with the tops of scaffolding, and, a bit further up the street, empty buildings that have had some of their upper floors half-demolished.

Along with its electronics market, the other feature that the area around Yongsan Station used to be known for was the red light district just across from it.  Until relatively recently, the parallel street only one block back from Hangang-daero-23-gil was lined with pink-lit rooms where girls waited for customers behind full-length windows.  That’s all gone now, as the city has focused on development and gentrification, but a walk down the backstreet revealed that a handful of those glass rooms are still there, only now there’s tape over cracks in the windows and all that’s inside is broken glass and other detritus.  Mostly, things are just gone, torn down.  Several lots along the alley are just piles of rubble: chunked concrete and metal behind cloth-covered fences.

It’s not just the red light district that’s seen the end of the line here.  Across from the Yongsan E-mart was a collection of well-known gamjatang restaurants, but these too have been gutted, and in the area behind them partially demolished buildings wait for the coup de grâce; for now their upper floors gape half open like a cross-sectioned diagram.  Even more than in other parts of the city, the redevelopment of Yongsan has been particularly contentious, with residents having claimed inadequate compensation and intimidation by armed thugs.  Fierce opposition by some of the area’s residents to their forced evictions reached a tragic culmination in January 2009 when police raided a building that Molotov cocktail-armed protestors had occupied.  At some point in the ensuing battle a fire broke out, and by the time things had ended five protestors and one police officer were dead.

But the struggle over the future of Yongsan is not yet over.  The 2009 fire occurred in Yongsan District 4.  When I left the station I noticed a long banner that had been strung up directly opposite Station Plaza proclaiming ‘We are not giving this land to thieves.’  It was signed the Union of Yongsan District 3 Residents.

Finally, the moment came for me to venture into the Yongsan Electronics Market (용산전자시장).  Taking a deep breath I headed across the long covered walkway that leads from the side of the corridor opposite the steps to Station Plaza, over what’s currently a large empty lot, and into the market’s first building, Yongsan Terminal Mall (용산터미널상가).  Similar to the tech part of I’Park Mall but older, Terminal covers several floors of cameras, computers, mp3 players, and accessories.  Step out the back door and on the sidewalk next to the parking lot is a collection of guys selling pirated DVDs, everything from the latest Hollywood blockbuster to The African Queen to an Art Garfunkel concert.

Not far away, past a line of snack shacks and DVD hawkers, is Seonin Mall (선인상가), which specializes in computer parts.  If you’re a hardcore computer geek, more interested in building your own machine than buying one, this is the place to come.  A bit surprisingly, even to myself, it’s the one place in the market that I kind of actually like going to.  There’s something fun about looking at all of the spare parts – motherboards, processors, uh…chips, and umm…uh, bytes and stuff? right? – and the salesmen have been friendly and helpful on the pair of occasions when I’ve needed something.  This time I had brought along my laptop, which had lost a couple of screws from its underside, and when I asked the guy who had replaced them how much it cost he just waved me off.

Across the parking lot from Terminal is Najin Mall (나진상가), specializing in phones and video games, though it was quite quiet as I walked through, and it looked as if many businesses had moved out.  Next to that, just to the west, stood the ET Land Main Building (전자랜드본관) and ET Land New Building (전자랜드신관).  I passed a Discman and portable cassette player on my way in, but other than that the merchandise in there was the same as in the Main Building and as in the Terminal Electronics Mall and as in the I’Park Mall, and I started to ponder something I find myself pondering a lot in Seoul, namely, how do all of these businesses that sell basically the same thing in the same area all manage to stay in business?  There was a smattering of shoppers in the ET New Building, but they didn’t seem sufficient to support it long-term, to say nothing of necessitating an expansion to a second structure.

The places I’ve mentioned here are only some of the main ones in the market, which, just when you begin to think there can’t be any more to it, reveals yet another building, another agglomeration of electricity-fed gadgetry.  Continuing to walk around, there seemed to be no end.  On Cheongpa-ro (청파로), a string of lighting shops where there was everything from chandeliers to multicolored signs programmable to flash either ‘삼겹살’ or ‘길비’ along with a cartoon of the livestock of your choice.  Next to Seonin Mall, running block after block, the Electronics Flea Market (벼룩시장).  Across from that, the old, grungy buildings of Electronics Town (전자타운).  Further down the street, the long Wonhyo Electronics Arcade (원효전자상가).  My hope that this visit would finally be the one to put me at ease, to at last chase away the tension I immediately feel as soon as I arrive at Yongsan was evaporating.  I’d walked around for close to two hours, but still I wanted to throw up my hands.  It’s too much.  I can’t go on.  I see Girls’ Generation’s smiling faces advertising Intel.  I’ll go on.

I’Park Mall

E-sports Stadium (전자경기장)

Top floor of I’Park Mall

Yongsan Electronics Market (용산전자시장)

Take the elevated walkway from the station

Near the exits at Majang Station is a terrific photo collage by the Japanese priest Nomura Motoyuki, who, between aid activities, photographed Seoul and, in particular, the Cheonggye shanty towns, from 1973 to 1985.  Compared with today, the Cheonggye of the 1970s is unrecognizable – the wood and tin shacks along its banks look ready to collapse at any moment, more reminiscent of a south Asian slum or refugee camp than anything that squares with notions of Seoul.  Kids with dirty faces play amid piles of trash and squalor, while another is bathed outside in a plastic bucket.

They’re fascinating images to hold in your head as you make your way to the stream today, just a couple hundred meters or so from Exit 2 or 3.  It’s simple but pretty here: a plain stretch of water with some patches of reeds and grassy banks the color of hay.  On the opposite bank a high concrete wall blocks the wide series of tracks that lead to Seoul Metro’s Gunja Train Depot, and this and the flyway running overhead blunt the stream’s charm a bit but don’t detract too much.  There’s of course a two-lane bike path running along the stream, but you’ll also find what is one of the cutest features we’ve come across so far: the Children’s Bicycle Safety Experience Learning Center (어린이 자전거 안전 체험학습장).  This little patch of concrete is separated into two parts: one with S-curve patterns and figure-8’s for absolute beginners to practice on; the other, for slightly more advanced riders, having curving paths and gently banked curves, as well as miniature crosswalks, street lanes, and bike traffic signs for learning traffic rules.  Didn’t come with your own ride?  No worries – there are bike rentals available near the entrance.

Walking to the stream from Exit 2 you might notice a sign advertising the Sancheong Medicinal Herbs Park (산청 약초 공원) at the stream, but when I arrived at its banks the only trace of the Herbs Park I found was the large sign marking its location.  The absence, I assume, was because I visited in February.  Just a few steps west of where the park was supposed to be was another streamside attraction,  the Cheonggyecheon Ecology Classroom (청계천 생태교실), a white canvas building with displays and dozens of rows of chairs inside, but this too was closed.

A walk in the opposite direction, from Exit 4, past the Hankook store with its tires wrapped in gold foil like wedding bands for giants, will lead toward Hanyang University and Wangsimni.  After a bit you’ll both start to pick up a university vibe and clearly make out the enormous Bit Plaza complex off to your right.

There’s a bit of the old school to the Majang area, readily visible on a small market street along Majang-ro-40-gil (마장로40길), which is the side street after U-turning from Exit 3 or 4.  Rough around the edges, there were just a few elderly hangers-on milling about, including an old ajumma wrapped up in mismatched scarf, hat, and jacket, bent over and pushing a low cart before she paused to wind up and spit a gob of unwanted saliva onto the street.

After returning to the main street I swung right onto Majang-ro-42-gil (마장로42길), where a guy was doing some welding work on the corner, having run an extension cord out of his adjacent shop and across the sidewalk.  After sidestepping the sparks I continued on but nothing really caught my eye until just before the end of the street when I noticed a steep set of stairs labeled Salgoji-2-gil (살곶이2길) running up to my right, just the kind that I can’t resist exploring.

I went up, and after winding through some narrow, concrete-paved alleys I found myself in a gravel and dirt parking lot in the middle of a rather isolated neighborhood that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.  There was almost no one about, and it seemed part slum, part abandoned, though I couldn’t figure out how much of which.  There was a vegetable plot and a couple dirt paths winding around it and alongside buildings, some trash strewn here and there, and a single old woman sitting outside and keeping an eye on me.  There was something odd, yet at the same time quirkily endearing about the place, both traits likely brought about by its relative isolation from the rest of the area.

Anyone familiar with Majang is probably wondering by this point When are they gonna get to the meat?  Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten, for if there is one thing Majang is synonymous with, it’s meat.

For nearly half a century, since the city’s main meat market moved here from Jongno-gu in 1963, the Majang Livestock Market (마장 축산물시장), has been providing an estimated 70% of all beef consumed in Seoul.  Along with the country’s largest meat market, Majang-dong also used to house a number of slaughterhouses, but these were moved to Doksan in 1998.  Today the market occupies 28 acres and contains thousands of shops selling, in an oh-so-literal way, everything beef and pork related but the squeal.

You can get to the market by going out Exit 2 and then turning left on Majang-ro-35-nagil (마장로35나길).  This will take you past a pair of enormous white warehouses on your left, abandoned-looking and surrounded by high brick walls.  Upon first seeing them I surmised that this was where the old slaughterhouses used to be, and decided to walk around the large block to see if I could confirm or deny my suspicions.  I turned left on the street just before the wall, which was lined with butcher shops with shiny metal hooks dangling from runners in the ceiling.  As the wall lowered I could partially make out a huge pile of twisted scrap metal in the yard in front of the first warehouse, and when I reached the opposite side this was revealed to be a storage space for KEPCO, the Korea Electric Power Corporation.  The second warehouse, of which I could only make out a gutted-looking second floor poking above the wall, was less clear.

Just past a brand new elementary and middle school is the market’s south entrance, a large arch overhead reading ‘Welcome to Meat Market.’

For anyone whose trip back up the chain from dinner plate to farm has gone no further than plastic-wrapped Styrofoam trays at the grocery store, Majang Meat Market will be an eye-opening experience, in a good and honest way.  It’s important to know what your food is, and was, and Majang takes you about as close to the present tense as one can go.

Stepping under the arch I glanced down and noticed a spot where the top of the asphalt had chipped away; the exposed pavement had a rusty hue, perhaps actually having been stained by years of blood.  Inside, brigades of rubber-smocked butchers were hard at work, one feeding a slab of meat through a band saw, creating a sound like electrified nails on a chalkboard, while nearby the team in another shop went about their business decked out in all white smocks and caps, which led me to wonder a) why butchers seem to always be portrayed wearing white, and why they actually often do in real life, and b) how every butcher I’ve ever seen dressed this way has never had a single stain on their shirt.

What was once an animal, at the market was deconstructed into product.  It dangled from pegs on walls, rolled by on dollies, was ground into chuck, or was sliced and wrapped in plastic.  Enormous ladders of ribs hung from industrial hooks, sheets of offal bathed in tubs of cold water like lazily soaking laundry, entire pigs stretched out on metal tables, and the gray shag carpet of intestines was folded over itself in wide heavy flaps on plastic sheeting.  Triangular pig ears were spaced evenly on one table and bowls of kidneys looked like mammoth gelatinous versions of their namesake beans.  On one counter sat a loose mandible, decoupled from its former body and sawed in half, and hanging from a hook were several pairs of what I was pretty certain were bull testicles.  Several stalls were selling tails.  The skin had been peeled off and what was left was menacing and surprisingly powerful-looking, like an alien’s tentacle.  There were also entire cow heads, skinned but with the horns still attached.  Some of these had been wrapped up in heavy fuchsia plastic, the sort of thing I imagined seeing mounted on the bedroom wall of a cattle rancher into S&M.

The amount of meat at the market was tremendous, almost overwhelming.  I marveled at how so much could be consumed – that this market, which contained more beef than I had ever seen in my life, by many magnitudes, represented only a small fraction of what was consumed nationwide, and that this represented only a single day in a single country.

It may have been because the heavy scent of protein in the air was going to my head, but as I wandered around the market I felt increasingly happy.  In a decade that has thus far been defined by political and economic malfeasance, it was heartening to be completely surrounded by people pursuing truly good, honest work.  There were a few shoppers in the market, but on a late Tuesday morning it was populated overwhelmingly by people just doing their jobs.  A man in a tiny room on a side alley fed a huge chunk of meat through an auto-slicer, cutting it up into thin ½ cm strips.  A steady stream of mopeds and trucks rumbled about, picking up and delivering.  In one stall, a middle-aged woman tended to nothing but pig heads, using a coarse brush to remove any excess hair before they could be sold.  (Has anyone else ever noticed how pig heads all seem to have a faint smile on their face?)

Along with the sales of beef and pork, a number of cottage industries have naturally arisen in the market to cater to the workers.  I watched a woman push a cart through the aisles, selling lunches of toast and ramen to the butchers.  A man in a corner stall sold rice cakes and dried seaweed, but business was slow and he was nodding off.  On one of the market’s main aisles I spotted a sign for a barber, its accompanying pole spinning away, and tried to think of a single place where I would want less to get my hair cut.  Of course, there are also knife salesmen and knife sharpeners.  One of these had set up his electric whetstone in an underpass below some rail tracks, and as he applied a dull blade to the grinder the sparks from the metal on metal friction sprayed out like a roman candle, bouncing off the concrete wall in front of him.

The first time that I visited Majang Market my companion and I were passed by a slowly cruising Mercedes with tinted windows, and I remarked, half-jokingly, that any Benz in a meat market must belong to the gangsters who provide ‘protection services.’  She responded that that was impossible.  There’s no way to verify the explanation for this, but it’s plausible and, at the very least, entertaining.  Although Korean gangsters, I was told, do in fact control many neighborhood markets in the country, largely in the, ‘Awfully nice market stall ya got here.  Be a shame if something happened to it,’ way, they leave Majang alone, not because the workers and organized crime have come to any sort of agreement, but because they’ve decided that thousands of people highly proficient in the use of all manner of knives, blades, and cleavers is one population it would be prudent not to
antagonize.

Of course, the point of these dozens of acres and hundreds of shops is to feed yourself, and for anyone who loves beef or pork there literally is no better place in the city.  Majang is where you’ll get the freshest meat, bar none.  There are certainly a number of barbecue restaurants in the surrounding neighborhood, but you don’t even need to leave the market to eat.  The majority of eateries are clustered near the market’s north entrance, opposite the Cheonggye Stream.  These range from jokbal places to large restaurants that serve just about any cut of beef or pork you could want, including barbecue ‘sampler platters’ that include three or four different cuts.

To get the fullest market experience, however, you might want to go full DIY.  Pick up whatever you want in the market and take it to one of the modest restaurants that will rent you a grill for just a few thousand won and serve up side dishes for just a few thousand more.  Take a moment to think about what’s brought your food here, throw it on the fire, dig in, and complete the chain.

Cheonggye Stream (청계천)

Children’s Bicycle Safety Experience Learning Center (어린이 자전거 안전 체험학습장)

Exit 3

Sancheong Medicinal Herbs Park (산청 약초 공원) and Cheonggyecheon Ecology Classroom (청계천 생태교실)

Exit 2

Majang Livestock Market (마장 축산물시장)

Exit 2

Left on Majang-ro-35-nagil (마장로35나길)

I left Yeokchon Station from Exit 1, and one of the first things I passed was a café called Santa House, which, yes, had a small gift shop below the café selling all sorts of Santa figurines and Christmas knickknacks.  Instead of Santa himself or even a reindeer, though, the business’ logo had a black and white dog, a cartoon shepherd, gazing out at customers.  Just a few steps further on I walked past a trio of big, fluffy, white dogs sleeping next to a small gate that led to someone’s house.  Two of them had wedged their muzzles underneath the six inches of space at the bottom of the gate so that their bodies were on one side of the fence, their dozing heads on the other.

Everywhere I went around Yeokchon it seemed like people were out with their dogs, taking them for a walk or a run in the park, or just using them as an excuse to stretch their own legs in the warm March sun.  After continuing down Jinheung-ro (진흥로) for a bit I swung a right on Jinheung-ro-7-gil (진흥로7길) to look for a market that was posted on the station’s neighborhood map.  I didn’t find it, but this did lead me to Jinheung-ro-1-gil (진흥로1길), running parallel to the main street, where traffic had been cut down to a single lane, the bare minimum width to accommodate vehicles, and the sidewalk running next to it was just as wide.  There were banks of shrubs too, and a new playground, and at intersections the streets were paved with cobblestones.  I’ve found myself in Eunpyeong-gu several times now, and I have to admit I’ve grown to be pretty fond of it, small gestures like this being a big reason why.  The little paseo was lively with parents pushing strollers, people on bikes, shoppers running to the store, and, of course, locals out walking their dogs.

Back out on Jinheung-ro, the closer I got to its intersection with Eunpyeong-ro (은평로) the newer and more built-up things got.  Near the station the buildings were shorter, but here there were tall apartment buildings, live music clubs, a Vietnamese pho place with patio seating, a three-story 24-hour barbecue restaurant, and a big ol’ E-Mart that dominated everything else.  It had been quiet by the station, and I was a bit surprised at how active things were down here.

On the other side of the station, the area outside Exit 2 was just what I expected in a neighborhood in these parts, which is to say a typical middle-class Seoul balance of shops and restaurants along the main roads and small and mid-size brick apartment buildings on the small streets and alleys.  When I went out Exit 3 I passed a donkatsu restaurant where an ajumma was yelling an order out of a second story window to a man on the sidewalk below.  It’s only a few minutes’ walk from the exit to Bulgwang Station – you can make out the covered sidewalk market up ahead on the left – and if you head that way you’re treated with lovely views of the southwestern edge of Bukhan Mountain (북한산) and Suri Peak (수리봉) rising between and behind the buildings, their bare tan stone jutting out in the places too tough for trees or scrub to grow.  Accordingly for this part of town, I saw quite a few people walking around in souped-up hiking gear and backpacks.

If that’s more effort than you’re looking for, though, you can simply head to the relatively new Eunpyeong Peace Park (은평평화공원) just outside of Exit 4.  Middle-aged women were handing out church flyers near the entrance when I arrived.

The park itself isn’t much – small, with a few benches, trees, and exercise equipment – but it was a remarkably happy place, with parents playing soccer with their kids or teaching them how to ride a bike or just having a picnic.  Here too were more dogs and their respective owners.  A small central plaza also looked like it turned into a splash fountain in warm weather months, but at the time of my visit it was still too early for that.

The park holds something for history buffs too.  At the end of the park’s main path is a bronze statue of U.S. Naval Lieutenant William Hamilton Shaw (June 5, 1922 – September 22, 1950), erected in 2010.  As you might presume from that date, Shaw died serving in the Korean War, but it was his life up to that point that makes his story particularly interesting.  Shaw was actually born in Korea, Pyongyang to be specific, to Christian missionary parents.  After spending his early years on the peninsula he eventually enrolled in the Navy and participated in the invasion of Normandy in World War II as an executive officer of PT Boat PT518.  After the war he taught warship operations at the Korean Naval Academy before pursuing a Ph.D. at Harvard.  He interrupted his studies when the Korean War broke out, however, returning to his homeland and taking part in the Battle of Inchon.  His death came shortly thereafter, in the effort to retake Seoul, when he was killed by a sniper in Nokbeon-ri (녹번리), what is now Nokbeon-dong (녹번동), where the Peace Park is located.

Eunpyeong Peace Park (은평평화공원)

Exit 4

For almost anyone who travels, there’s a certain romance associated with rail travel that other modes of transportation can’t quite match.  Flight had its moment of glam in the postwar years, but few still find anything romantic about the process of contemporary air travel with its steadily decreasing comforts and increasing security indignities.  Boat travel within developed countries all but doesn’t exist, and cruises aren’t so much travel as the vacation itself.  Trains, however (and their whiff of outdatedness for long distance travel may in part explain this), still evoke a certain charm, a sense that wonderful things might happen not only at your destination, but on your way there.  The names of the great routes – the Orient Express, the Trans-Siberian, the Blue Train – and the great stations – Grand Central, Union, Gare du Nord, St. Pancras – reflect that.  It’s no coincidence that the Hogwarts Express was a steam train and not a jetliner.  Magical people take the train.

Alas, Seoul Station is not one of the world’s greats, but that’s largely due to a political twist of fate.  If reunification ever becomes a reality, Seoul will become the terminus for what would undoubtedly be one of the world’s longest and most incredible journeys: Lisbon to Seoul overland.

Until that day, however, those of us who live and travel here have no choice but to accept the fact that what counts as Korea’s ultimate rail journey is the between-meals run to Busan or Mokpo.  What the Korean railroad suffers in its geographical limitations, however, it compensates for in its quality and in its wonderful station.

Uh, make that two stations.

Seoul Station, now, refers to the new Seoul Station, but it used to refer to the old Seoul Station right next door.  In the interest of historical linearity, let’s start there.

The old Seoul Station is a beauty of a thing; it looks the way a train station is supposed to look.  Designed by the Japanese architect Tsukamoto Yasushi and completed in 1925, thick stone slabs ring the bottom below reddish-pink bricks, all below an arched central window and Byzantine dome.

While trains may no longer run from the old station, it has fortunately been brought back to life with an extensive refurbishment and reimagining.  Reopened on August 9, 2011 and rechristened Culture Station Seoul 284 (문화역서울 284), it’s been turned into an exhibition space, and until February 11 it’s hosting a preliminary exhibition entitled ‘Countdown’ before fully opening as an art complex in March.  The current exhibition is a mélange of disciplines and styles from a number of artists, foreign and Korean.  Works range from sculpture to video to slideshows to audio to site-specific installations.

As interesting as the artworks, if not more so, is their juxtaposition with the restored station and the station itself.  The new Seoul Station is a paragon of modernity, but the original captures the imagination in a way particular to old rail stations.  It’s not hard to envision a curl of cigarette smoke drifting out from a shadowy corner, followed by a trench coated Graham Greene or Paul Theroux, leather satchel in hand.  Thick granite columns line the foyer, and light streams through a stained glass skylight in the ceiling.  There are fireplaces, candelabras, and wood-paneling on the walls.  The exhibit guide notes where the Ladies’ Waiting Room and the Barber Shop were, and you can stroll the carpeted floor of what used to be The Grill, for a long time Seoul’s best Western restaurant, imagining the intrigue as foreign powers plotted Korea’s fate in the pre-war years.

In at least one location, the old station offers an even deeper look into its past.  In the old barber shop and restroom on the second floor, refurbishment has been left half-completed, so that you’re able to view original construction materials and techniques from behind protective glass.

The old station is connected to the new by Seoul Square, which is known by many Seoulites primarily for being a popular gathering spot for the city’s homeless.  Indeed, you’ll always find several wandering around or seated on blankets or cardboard, drinking or eating cup ramen, but their presence here is less pronounced that at similar stations in the U.S.  There is also, more often than not, the odd demonstrator or two, bearing a sign and airing a grievance, as well as members of the Seoul Station Street Church (서울역 거리 교회), with their bright jackets, fliers, and eager entreaties to know Jesus.  I had one member, a genial middle-aged man with a voice that sounded like he lived on a diet of cigarettes and gravel, follow me down the street for a block or so before deciding to try his luck with someone else.

Also on the square is a rather badass statue of Kang Woo-kyu (왈우 강우규 의사).  The statue, which was only unveiled last year, commemorates the anti-colonial activist who, when he was already in his 60s, threw a bomb at the Japanese Governor-General Saito Makoto on this spot in 1919.  Sporting a goatee and some serious boots, his hanbok flowing behind him, Gang’s right arm is tensed at his side, ready to unleash the grenade in his hand.

The new Seoul Station (서울역) is bright and airy, and it handles its bustle well.  Lined with fast food places and shops, it also has floor exhibits where the likes of Chevrolet show off their latest products, but the tall, high windows create the feeling of space, and people move through the station efficiently.  A department store is attached to both the first and second floors of the station, and on the upper concourse, in addition to a food court, you’ll also find space for photo exhibits and the Open Concert Hall, where two pianos and a keyboard sat at the ready.

After looking around the interior of the station for a bit I decided to head out to the mezzanine above the tracks, from where I could watch the trains pulling in and departing and watch the flow of passengers.  I was briskly making my way there when a line of yellow tape that I spotted on the ground caused me to stop in my tracks.  On the tape was text that read, in English, ‘We Trust You: (Only paid customers can cross this line.)’ (고객 신뢰선 (운임경계선) in Korean).  That was the security check.  All of it.  Of course, tickets are checked on the train, but there were no guards, no metal detectors, no baggage inspection.  It was remarkable, and even though I had no intention of sneaking onto a train it seemed so good-natured, so trusting, so esteeming of my character that the yellow line actually made me pause and consider for a moment whether or not I should cross it, and when I did I needed to take a moment to convince myself that what I was doing was OK, that I was acting in the name of reportage and wasn’t actually doing something wrong.

Outside, below the woven gray canopy of beams, the sleek metallic trains lined up even-spaced on the tracks like silverware in its case, awaiting dinner.  I found a spot near the mezzanine’s edge to watch as, a stream of hundreds of dark coats poured out of a newly arrived train and up the escalators.  It was New Year’s Eve, and lots of soldiers were out on leave, heading home to spend time with their families. A group of about 20 army men went by, all dressed in identical camouflage uniforms and with green canvas duffels strapped to their backs.  More stylish were the marines in snappy gray topcoats with polished gold buttons.

In front of Seoul Station and Seoul Square is the busy Hangang-ro (한강로), and, leaving the station behind, I headed south on it, past a busy taxi queue, to see a bit of the neighborhood.

Several more of the city’s homeless were here and there on the street surrounding the square, including one I passed who was squatting over a pile of discarded wires, peeling the plastic coating off by hand to get at the valuable copper inside.  Not much further on, just past Exit 13, was a line of people on the sidewalk, about 50 people deep, waiting their turn to get into a soup kitchen that was being operated in a small storefront.  Workers in bright yellow jackets watched over the crowd, and when someone had finished their meal and exited they guided the next person in.

Beyond the soup kitchen were a couple of shops on either side of the street selling medical oddities like old wooden crutches, prosthetic limbs, and fake silicon hands in a variety of sizes and colors.  None of them were open, and it was unclear if they were simply closed for the weekend or for good.

In the opposite direction, via a five-minute walk from Exit 4, is one of Seoul’s most well-known landmarks, Sungnyemun (숭례문), more commonly known as Namdaemun (남대문).

Of course, for the time being there’s nothing to see, as an enormous white shed encloses the gate as it undergoes restoration following the 2008 arson attack that partially destroyed it.

If you walk there you’ll notice that the area north of the station is far more lively and eclectic than the area to the south, owing, of course, to the nearby presence of Namdaemun Market (남대문시장) (which we’ll cover when we get to Hoehyeon Station (회현역)).  But even on Namdaemun-ro (남대문로) there’s plenty of market spillover, and the sidewalk is lined with tables where vendors sell everything from headlamps to scarves.

To the west lies Seoul Station’s backdoor, a largely residential neighborhood whose character is entirely different from the neighborhood to the east.  I actually stopped here first, stepping out Exit 4 onto a pleasant little cobblestoned plaza planted with a ‘garden’ of blue and red-tipped metal poles.  Directly across the street was a fire engine-red complex of buildings behind a matching concrete wall, that upon closer inspection turned out to actually be warehouses for the National Theater Company of Korea (국립극장).  Right next to the complex was a recycling yard where a half-dozen men were using heavy equipment to noisily move some metal beams about.

Behind the warehouses and the recycling yard, the hilly area between the station and Mallijae-ro (만리재로) is an older lower-class neighborhood full of brick apartments and homes, some with tile roofs, and modest, not very profitable-looking stores and businesses.

Business picks up after you climb up to Mallijae-ro, and it’s just off here where you’ll find the Sohn Kee-Chung Athletic Park (손기정체육공원).  The easiest way to reach the park is to go out Exit 4, cross Cheongpa-ro (청파로), turn right, merge left onto Mallijae-ro just before the overpass, and cross the pedestrian overpass that will come up ahead of you.  After you cross go down on the left and Mallijae-ro-31-gil (만리재로31길) will be directly in front of you, where a small sign points to the park 120 meters away.

Longtime readers (and those savvy to Korean athletic history) may find that name ringing a bell, as we earlier had a run-in with a Sohn memorial when we visited Sports Complex Station (종합운동장역).  We touched on his history in that post, but to briefly recap: Sohn was born in 1914 in Sinuiju (신의주), on what is now the North Korean border with China.  Because Korea was under Japanese occupation at the time, Sohn was forced to compete under the Japanese flag and a Japanese name, Son Kitei.  In Berlin he set an Olympic record, and on the medal stand he used a pin oak sapling he had received as victor to cover up the Japanese sun on his chest.

Befitting a park dedicated to Sohn, the emphasis here is on athletic facilities, and there are several terraced into the slope, including tennis courts, a nice soccer pitch, and even a ping-pong table.  Additionally, there is the Sohn Kee-Chung Culture Center (손기정문화센터) and Library (독서실), housed in handsome red brick buildings with ivy climbing up their sides.

There are two sculptures of Sohn in the park.  One is a large rendering of just the elderly Sohn’s head, looking out from the park’s highest point over a wonderful view of the rooftops of central Seoul.  In front of the sculpture is the pin oak (손기정 월계관 기념수) that was given to Sohn upon his victory in the ­­­­1936 Olympic marathon.  According to the nearby plaque, Olympic medalists were originally presented with crowns of Mediterranean laurels, but starting with the ’36 Games the laurels were replaced with pin oak.  The oak that Sohn received was planted at Yangjeong High School (양정고등학교), Sohn’s alma mater, but when the high school relocated the former site was turned into the athletic park.

The second statue is partway down the slope, and captures Sohn in a pose as the runner is more commonly remembered.  The bib on his chest identifies him as racer number 382, the number he wore in the Berlin race.  He is midstride, his head cocked at a peculiar angle, straining to outrun the other athletes and, just as surely, the shame and burden he was made to carry.

Culture Station Seoul 284 (문화역서울 284)

Exit 2

Hours | Tues – Fri: 11:00 – 19:00; Weekends: 11:00 – 20:00; Closed Monday, January 1, and Lunar New Year’s Day

Admission: Free

02) 3407-3500

www.culturestationseoul284.org

www.countdown2011.org

Seoul Square

Exit 1 or 2

Seoul Station (서울역)

Accessible directly from subway

Sungnyemun (숭례문) / Namdaemun (남대문)

Exit 4

Straight on Namdaemun-ro (남대문로)

Sohn Kee-Chung Athletic Park (손기정체육공원)

Exit 4

Cross Cheongpa-ro (청파로), turn right, Left on Mallijae-ro (만리재로), cross pedestrian bridge, Right on Mallijae-ro-31-gil (만리재로31길)

Parts of this post first appeared in the April 2012 issue of SEOUL magazine.