Posts Tagged ‘Gangnam-gu’

Hakdong Station (학동역) Line 7 – Station #731

September 14, 2011

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Back to where it all began. Well, almost. We started this project nearly two years ago one stop away, at Nonhyeon Station (논현역), and the trip to Hakdong brought some familiar sights with it. Foremost among these is Nonhyeon Furniture Street (논현가구거리), which runs along Hakdong-ro (학동로) between the Line 7 stations, and if you’re approaching from Hakdong you’ll want to go out Exit 5 or 6 to reach it.

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The majority of this stretch of road is lined with furniture shops. Catering to the more well-heeled Gangnam clientele, the stores here are more upscale than what you’ll find on the furniture streets in Ahyeon (아현) or Isu (이수). Most of them bear European-y names like Ottimo or Scandia, the latter of which of course had pieces of simple Scandinavian design. Window shopping takes you past bedroom sets both minimal and ornate, tall windows with several drapery designs hanging from runners, and safe stores with all the lockboxes you could ever need.

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Looking for something a bit more unique? You might want to hang a left on Hakdong-ro-24-gil (학동로24길) where, on the first block you’ll find a boxy, modern three-story building – part showroom, part-workshop. Hearing the buzz of power saws I looked in at the first floor shop. Open to the street and full of very serious looking equipment, an ornate structure of steel tubes sat welded together on a giant table, looking like a clutch of drinking straws that had been dipped in silver paint. This is 최가철물점 (Choi Family Hardware Shop), a renowned hardware and design shop.

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Now, you might be skeptical of just how famous a hardware shop can actually be, but this place is much more than your average nuts-and-bolts-in-boxes and six-jelly-donut-a-day-staff DIY store. This is not the kind of place you go to pick up flange nuts or a box-end wrench. It’s the kind of place you go if you have serious cash to splash and want to fit out your business with incredible tables, railings, or installation pieces. The Choi family has provided work for 7 Luck Casino, the Banyan Tree, and the Suncheon Country Club, and they built the workspace where much of the traditional craftwork for the restoration of Sungnyemun (숭례문) (or Namdaemun (남대문)) is being performed. But like me, you’re likely to be most impressed by their simple things. Browse through the website and discover just how beautiful a door handle can be. (The Choi family also owns and runs the Lock Museum (쇳대박물관) in Daehangno.)

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The hilly backstreets southwest of the station around 최가철물점 are filled with tile and bath fixture shops, so after you’ve picked up furniture for the new place you can swing through this area for the finishing touches.

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You’ll also find tiling and light fixture shops in the backstreets left out of Exit 2, and heading south from Exit 3 or 4 will bring you to yet more lighting and fixture stores. Continue past those and you’ll come to three large sporting goods stores, specializing in outdoor equipment for skiing, snowboarding, diving, and the like.

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Bath fixture shopping reaches its zenith at Royal&Co. You’ll see the large gray and glass façade down Nonhyeon-ro (논현로) from Exit 7, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you just stop there. Please, go in. What you’ll find are toilets, urinals, and showerheads lined up on a display floor like cars at an auto show might be. Yes, this is as weird as it sounds. But even weirder is the fact that after a few minutes you adjust and start to walk around admiring the various ceramic structures, comparing their various attributes, and finding yourself impressed by just what a toilet can do. And you have to admit that some of those tubs and showers are downright sexy.

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But if passive admiration simply isn’t enough for you, and, oh, it wasn’t for me, stroll past the polished stones in the reflecting pool to what is elsewhere known as a ‘restroom,’ but that here is so much more, as the sign reading ‘Experience Zone’ so clearly states. Pause to admire the urinal artwork before stepping into the bathroom of your appropriate gender. Curse the fate that bore you into such a lowly position that you have to physically raise and lower the toilet seat on the commode at your home as the one before you requires only the slightest movement before a motor kicks in and automatically finishes the job for you. Curse further when you return to the showroom and the sensor on another toilet detects your presence and instigates Seat-Raising without your even needing to lift a finger. Is this paradise? I think we both know the answer to that.

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Oh, and if that shopping’s worked up an appetite, simply make for the casual Italian restaurant on Royal&Co’s second floor. The food’s good, but the ambiance is what makes it special.

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Believe it or not, there are non-home improvement-related things in Hakdong. Hang an immediate left on Hakdong-ro-33-gil (학동로33길) outside Exit 10, then take your first right, and a half block up on your right-hand side you’ll see a brightly striped sign. Along with the Sajeon Dental Clinic (사전치과) it advertises the Museum of Korean Embroidery (한국사전자수박물관), on the fourth floor of the Sajeon House Building. The building, and therefore the museum, wasn’t open on a recent Saturday, so I couldn’t check it out, but a display picture showed a bright, orderly place exhibiting a series of screens, some wall hangings, and several smaller items.

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At the time I was a little bit relieved that the museum was closed, to be honest. Embroidery? Not really my thing. But a look at their website made me think again. The court wrapping cloths (궁보), bridal costumes (활옷), and keepsake pouches (주머니) visible there are quite stunning, and if I find myself in the area some other time I’m going to make it a point to try again.

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Lastly, if you walk a short ways down Hakdong-ro from Exit 6, you’ll soon come to Hakdong-ro-21-gil (학동로21길). Turn right here and follow the narrow crooked street to Hakdong Park (학동공원), which will appear on your left in a dense bunching of trees after several blocks. This secluded spot is wonderfully calm and quiet, with no major streets and their accompanying traffic anywhere in the vicinity. The requisite dirt patch with exercise equipment is of course there, but included amongst that are three bench presses if you’re after something a little more legit than rotating wheels in circles. You’ll also find some playground equipment (swings, teeter-totter), a wooden pavilion, and a shady, if hilly, walking path.

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Nonhyeon Furniture Street (논현가구거리)

Exit 5 or 6

최가철물점 (Choi Family Hardware Shop)

Exit 5, left on Hakdong-ro-24-gil (학동로24길)

www.echoiga.com

Royal&Co

Exit 7

North on Nonhyeon-ro (논현로)

Museum of Korean Embroidery (한국사전자수박물관)

Exit 10

Left on Hakdong-ro-33-gil (학동로33길), then take the first right

www.bojagii.com

Phone: 02) 515-5114~6

Hakdong Park (학동공원)

Exit 6

West on Hakdong-ro (학동로), right on Hakdong-ro-21-gil (학동로21길), continue several blocks

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Gaepo-dong Station (개포동역) Bundang Line – Station #K219

May 11, 2010

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Our first foray onto the Bundang Line brought us to Gaepo-dong Station on a gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon.  The Yangjae Stream runs just north of the station, so we decided to begin the tour by heading south on Samsung-ro (삼성로) into the neighborhood that the station serves.

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The walk south from Exit 6 was pleasant – colored lanterns for Buddha’s birthday were strung along the street; trees lined both sides of the sidewalk, almost creating a canopy; and leafy bushes grew over the low iron fences separating the sidewalk from parking lots and businesses – but there wasn’t really anything of interest, so after a few hundred meters we hung a u-turn and headed back towards the station.

At the station, we crossed the street west to the opposite corner, near Exit 8, where the Japanese School in Seoul (서울일본인학교) is located.  Its large red brick buildings stood behind locked gates, however, so we couldn’t get in for a closer look.

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Continuing west along Gaepo-gil (개포길) brought us to the Gyeonggi Girls High School (경기여자고등학교), where dozens of tour buses were pulled up and a few hundred middle-aged folks were on what we guessed to be a company picnic.  A couple dozen were involved in a tug-of-war competition on the soccer pitch, but the vast majority was seated on blankets or at folding tables underneath tents that lined two sides of the field.  There was plenty of kimbap to go around and lots and lots of bottles of beer, soju, and makkeoli.  It looked to have taken its toll on at least one of the attendees, who had spread out an insulated blanket and lain down for a nap in the middle of a traffic island.

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Going back, all of the entrances into Gaepo West Park (개포서근공원) by Exit 1 were closed off as the paths were torn up, but we had better luck across the street at Gaepo East Park (개포동근공원).  The park was lovely, with shaded walking paths that took us past some kids playing seven-a-side basketball and a young rollerblader whose left boot was untied, leaving it to flop and bend at the ankle, so that his process of chasing after his more securely shod sister involved small strokes with his right foot and a ball-and-chained dragging of his left.

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We took some stairs that led down to the stream bank and strolled west, eventually getting to a wood and brick pavilion underneath the Yeongdong 6 Bridge (영동6교), where families were taking a break from the hot sun to relax in the shade.  Other people were using the Sunday to take the family pet out, and several small dogs wandered around.

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Returning to the station, we walked on a wide bike and pedestrian path past the tall grasses and reeds that lined the slow-moving brown stream.  Yangjae Stream (양재천) and the path running along it are well sunken from the street above, so the sight of apartments and traffic and city on the near side of the stream are obscured, and only a look across to the opposite side or into the distance ahead brings Gangnam’s hulking apartment towers into view.

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Another pavilion occupied the shaded area below Yeongdong 5 Bridge (영동5교) and the station, and here too families and couples lazed about, grabbing a few more hours of relaxation before the busy Seoul week started again.

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Japanese School in Seoul (서울일본인학교)

Exit 8

Gaepo West Park (개포서근공원)

Exit 1 or 2

Gaepo East Park (개포동근공원)

Exit 3 or 4

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Sinsa Station (신사역) Line 3 – Station #337

April 6, 2010

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We went to Sinsa at the invite of Steve Revere, editor of 10 Magazine, who was kind enough to take interest in our project and will be featuring Seoul sub→urban in 10’s upcoming Blog of the Month feature.  To begin the stop we met up with Steve at 10’s office in Nonhyeon-dong: a red brick building with a nice little deck in front where three wrought iron and wood park benches sat.

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After the three of us sat down over some superb coffee Steve had brewed up and chatted about the magazine, K-blogs, food, and life in Korea, Steve took us for lunch at one of his favorite restaurants, what he had promised to be a divey, gritty, hole in the wall with some of the best food he’s had in Korea.

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Outside of Gui Daehak (구이대학) stood an antiquated grill that appeared to have been used so many times and for so long that the charcoal residue had fused to the metal grating.  The smell of charcoal and grilled fish, though not at all unpleasant, was plain from several meters away.

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Inside were less than a dozen tables.  Those in the main room, which was maybe 15 square meters, were made from oil drums with aluminum tops, a common sight in simple Korean restaurants.  In an even smaller back room were three or four tables on the floor, but when we visited for a late lunch the only people using them were a couple of the restaurant ajummas slicing green onions, their pet cat on a leash tied to a table leg next to them.  Gui Daehak’s walls were a dull yellow, the color of tobacco-stained teeth, and one of the corners was water-stained.

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There are generally two ways of viewing a restaurant like this.  One is with trepidation, leery that the worn façade covers up even less salubrious features.  The other is with barely-suppressed enthusiasm because you, like me, believe that it’s simple math that the more time spent on maintaining a restaurant’s appearance the less time there is to spend on the food.  Sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong.  At Gui Daehak you would be very, very right.

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Steve ordered us a bowl of fermented bean paste stew (청국장), spicy stir-fried pork (제육볶음), and grilled mackerel (삼치구이).  It’s easy to fall into platitudes or triteness when writing about food, so I’m simply going to say one thing about what we ate at Gui Daehak and leave it at that: I’ve spent two and a half years living in Korea, and this was one of the three best meals I’ve had in that time.

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After lunch Steve went back to the 10 offices and Liz and I crossed Naruteo-gil (나루터길) to stroll around Garosu-gil (가로수길).  I had never actually been there, and it was something of an atypical introduction since the gingko trees for which the street is so famous were not only bare, but had been rather drastically pruned, with entire limbs lopped off, so that they looked quite like oversized coat racks.

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The weather was quite beautiful, though, and Garosu-gil’s second most famous attraction, beautiful people, was out in full force, strolling from shop to café to restaurant.  We joined the fashionable stream, walking past the Per Se Bistro & Café, where clear plastic bins were filled with sun-drying tomatoes, and by the Lumiere clothing boutique, where an old-school cinema marquee, complete with slide-on letters, rather oddly quoted Genesis 1:3.

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Garosu-gil often gets exaggeratedly described as the ‘Paris of Seoul,’ and though this is fanciful thinking it does have a distinctly different vibe to it than other areas of the city.  There’s as much French on signs here as there is English, and on Garosu-gil and its adjacent streets you’ll find not only French restaurants and Italian bistros, but creperies, the Spain Club, and a German deli that was under construction when we walked past.  If the city is really serious about turning it into a Europeanized leisure and shopping destination, however, they couldn’t do much better than to turn it into a pedestrian-only street, all the better for some seriously fabulous sashaying.

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Gui Daehak (구이대학)

77 Nonhyeon-ro Seo 21-gil (논현로서21길)

02-3444-5506

Exit 1

Right on Dosandae-ro Nam 4-gil (도산대로 남4길); Right on Nonhyeon-ro Seo 21-gil (논현로서21길)

Garosu-gil (가로수길)

Exit 8

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Posted in Gangnam-gu, Line 3, Seocho-gu, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Nonhyeon Station (논현역) Line 7 – Station #732

November 19, 2009

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Arriving at Nonhyeon at noon, we emerged from the station to find the morning’s rains stopped and a bright midday sun glinting off puddles and still-wet street signs.  What had looked like it would be a gloomy, damp outing an hour ago had been transformed into the perfect weather for Nonhyeon-dong’s signature sport: armoire hunting.

From Exit 1 or Exit 8, all the way down Hakdong-ro to Hakdong Station runs Nonhyeon Furniture Street.  For several blocks both sides of the avenue are lined with almost nothing but furniture stores.  Most are of the high-end variety, which you would expect just south of the Sinsa-Apgujeong-Cheongdam golden triangle.

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A number of stores carry domestically made products or furniture whose style reflects Asian influence.  The most eye-catching of these was Tongyeongchilgi (통영칠기) where enormous lacquered chests, wardrobes, and armoires with mother-of-pearl inlay were on display in the front window.

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Most shops, though, seem to supply imported pieces or work that is heavily cued by European design.  This predilection is reflected in a quick scan of a number of the stores’ names: F. Angelico, Maison Francaise, Italiano, Leicht, Giotto.  Most of these places had classy, elegant furniture in classy, elegant buildings, but we also came across the occasional Old World mistake.

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Museo’s façade was designed to look like a classical Italian villa but the shoddy execution made it appear as if it had been constructed with a mix of plaster of Paris and frosting.  The fact that the very utilitarian brick structure underneath was visible just around the corner didn’t help either.  The furniture on display reflected the tastes of someone who severely lamented the fact that they weren’t born into royalty.  A giant bed with gold bedposts, a velvet headboard, and maroon velvet bedspread was simply too much.  Looking at it, Liz remarked, ‘Could you ever have sex in a bed like that?’  I agreed I could not.  Not unless I was made the duke or earl of something first.

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If, however, you are the Baron von Gangnam and need a secure place to store your crown and scepter, Furniture Street is also home to Safe 21, where you can buy all variety of safes.  No man-size safes, though.  Sorry Mr. Cheney.

From Furniture Street we turned south down Hakdong-ro Nam-2-gil to explore Yeongdong Market (영동시장).  A typical neighborhood market, storefronts and street displays were set up selling bedding, the ever-present primary-colored plastic bowl for washing and rinsing, ddeok, bags of peppers, and dozens of silver, finger-sized eels slithering in a bucket of aerated water.

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While not particularly unique in and of itself, what struck me about the market was how utterly removed I felt from the south bank’s bustle and hum.  A block away was Gangnamdaero – one of the gu’s main north-south arteries – and its heavy traffic and international chain stores, but in Yeongdong Sijang that all disappeared.  The streets were narrow and the sound of traffic was gone.  Almost the only other people around were ajummas and ajeoshis for whom the Calvin Klein store three blocks away was probably a lot less relevant than the buckets of fresh crabs or the pig heads for sale.

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After strolling south through the market we turned west onto Gangnamdaero Dong-35-gil and came across the smells of Hong Kong Banjeom (홍콩반점), a Hong Kong-style dumpling restaurant.  The neighborhood had been sleepy but the restaurant was packed with lunchtime diners.  Chefs in the open kitchen in the back were working over roaring flames and at the front a couple more were making dumplings in a special area devoted to take-away orders.  We placed an order and within five minutes had three piping fresh pork, chive, and onion dumplings, each the size of a fist, all for only 4,000 won.

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Sitting on the restaurant’s small porch, Liz got to chatting with the affable proprietor of a small towel stand across the street whose sign claimed ‘Bombing Bargain.’  She walked away with a gift – a peach hand towel with a picture of Santa on it – and we walked out of the neighborhood, back to the wide avenues of Gangnam.

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Nonhyeon Furniture Street

Exit 1, 8

Yeongdong Market (영동시장)

Exit 1

East on Hakdong-ro (학동로)

Right on Hakdong-ro Nam-2-gil (학동로 남2길)

Hong Kong Banjeom (홍콩반점)

Exit 2

South on Gangnamdaero (강남대로)

Left on Gangnamdaero Dong-35-gil (강남대로 동35길), opposite the Calvin Klein and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

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Posted in Gangnam-gu, Line 7 | 1 Comment »

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