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Hwagok Station (화곡역) Line 5 – Station #517

April 28, 2013

Almost immediately, Hwagok produced one of the most unique, most unusual, and, least kid sister-friendly businesses we’ve turned up in the course of this project. About a block and a half down Gangseo-ro (강서로) from Exit 5 was 곤충박물관 충우 (Insect Museum Chung-u), easily spotted by the sign outside with pictures of several different butterflies and stag beetles enlarged to the size of a rather large terrier. Once I got past the initial B-movie shock, the creatures actually started to seem quite beautiful. Blown up to this magnitude their elaborate features and brilliant colors became more easily visible, and they made me think of what you might get if you put a bunch of Japanese shoguns in a gay pride parade.

In the windows next to the photographs were several dozen insect specimens pinned and mounted in glass frames, including about 20 Morpho godarti butterflies a shade of blue that made them look as if a live current was running through them. Along with the butterflies there were also stag beetles, tarantulas, and three scorpions.

Chung-u isn’t just an insect museum, though. As its sign outside says, it’s also an insect shop selling insect goods, and lest you be tempted to think there’s no market for that sort of thing, Chung-u has been in business since 1996. When I stepped inside, my first impression was of how remarkably clean the place was; not exactly what I’d expected at a bug business. The two staffers working there were bent over a foam board, carefully pinning two large butterflies the color of autumn leaves in place. In the glass counter between them were dozens and dozens of dead specimens for sale, each carefully wrapped in a small packet with a price sticker attached to it. Stag beetles averaged between 8 and 15-thousand won, while the most expensive rhino beetle will set you back a cool 117,000. Behind the counter were shelves of neatly arranged plastic bins of more packeted insects, each bin labeled with the species’ Latin name and a large picture. If living things are more your bag, the store’s opposite wall had several aquariums that held beetles, tarantulas, and scorpions, and a refrigerator was stocked with food for stag beetle larva, which looks sort of like bleached couscous. Naturally, they also sell toys and t-shirts.

I stepped through a door in the back of the shop and headed up to the museum on the second and third floors. The second floor had dozens of varieties of butterflies, some with wings that looked like holograms, and several dozen varieties of stag and rhinoceros beetles from all over the world, including specimens from Australia, Colombia, Arizona, and Cameroon. They ranged in size, from a thumbnail to a fist, and in color as well. Some were all black like S.W.A.T. team vehicles; others were emerald, striped, or dotted, and some species looked as if they’d been dipped in glitter. Also on the second floor was a display of insects of the rainforest and a photo prop like those you might see at the zoo or in a folk village, only instead of being in the face of a kangaroo or palace guard the cutouts where you stuck your head here were in the face of a stag and rhino beetle.

I then went up to the third floor (The stairs to the fourth floor, which is not part of the museum, were blocked by an old Sega arcade console for Mushiking: The King of Beetle, which looked to be a rock-paper-scissors-based stag beetle fighting game.), where there were more butterflies, including an Atlus moth (Attacus atlas) from Indonesia that was orange and brown and the size of a paperback. There were also moths, cicadas, stick insects, leaf insects, praying mantises, locusts, fireflies, wasps, and elegant little dragonflies. Some of the most interesting were the Fulgora laternaria (두눈악어머리꽃매미) moths from Indonesia, with their bulbous, cashew-shaped heads; the 1 ½-foot long Phobaeticus serratipes walking stick from Malaysia; and wasps from East Java the size of my pinkie finger from second knuckle to tip. There was also a video of insect hunters in the rain forest playing on a large screen. On the whole, there was quite a bit of information on the various species in the museum, though all of it is in Korean.

Once I left the museum I continued in the direction I’d been going, south towards the Hwagok Tunnel, before turning right on Garogongweon-ro (가로공원로). There was major construction going on in the middle of the road, with traffic being diverted to the sides, and the sidewalks had been ripped up and temporarily replaced with stones. Up ahead, planes were taking off from Gimpo Airport, still low enough that I could make out the airline logos painted on their sides. I’d come this way to try to find a market that had been marked on the station’s neighborhood map, Hwagok Jungang Market (화곡중앙시장), but I couldn’t spot it, and with three other markets in the neighborhood I decided to move on.

From Garogongweon-ro I turned right onto Hwagok-ro-20-gil (화곡로20길) and followed it past small businesses and hostess bars until it put me on Hwagok-ro (화곡로). There I turned left and then left again onto Hwagok-ro-18-gil (화곡로18길), looking for the second market on my list, Gangseo Jungang Market (강서중앙시장). But where I thought the market would be, or maybe where it used to be, was a brand new apartment tower, appropriately named New Town, its first floor retail space still waiting to be filled.

I went back down Hwagok-ro toward the station. The commercial avenue wasn’t terribly busy on a Friday afternoon, but there were a few things going on: A woman pulled her dog along in a shopping basket, a guy smooshed his face up against a tree as he reached around it to tape a sign to its trunk, and hanging on a rack outside of a clothing store was a sweatshirt of the Peanuts characters that read ‘FRESH OUT OF THE HOOD’.

At the corner I turned left, and from Exit 8 followed Gangseo-ro north, heading for Daewon Market (대원시장). On Gangseo-ro-39-gil (강서로39길) I swung a left, and on a corner up ahead was a fruit and vegetable stand, but nothing I’d call a market. I circled the triangular block, and it was only after I got back to where I’d started that I noticed two red and white banners reading ‘대원시장,’ indicating the building I’d just walked around was the market. It was nothing I’d call a market, though, just a few stores in a building, and not even of the market variety: a clothes shop, a place selling electric supplies, a PC bang, and a design business. Hwagok was starting to seem like the land of the markets that aren’t there.

Walking around, I’d noticed a surfeit of photocopied ads for apartments taped up to bus stops and light poles in the neighborhood, and sure enough there was plenty of construction going on. On the east side of Gangseo-ro a couple blocks down from Exit 1 and behind a huge pink sign that read ‘New & More,’ fields of gray apartment towers were springing up, some just the earliest frames, some nearly completed. In front of these a huge church was going in, setting up an inter-denominational showdown with the other huge church going in on the opposite corner.

After having struck out on three of the supposed markets in the neighborhood, I set out from Exit 3 to try my luck with the last one. Heading east on Hwagok-ro I passed a supermarket that had just been gutted, a few ajeosshis standing around the barren registers and loading debris into trucks. Broken glass was scattered across the floor, and Schick and Nivea display stands were empty but still there, pricing tags still attached. Several meters past the store an ajumma was selling cotton swabs, bandages, and other basic health supplies from a stall set up on the sidewalk outside of a hospital.

A couple blocks from the station I reached the market, which was actually there this time. A large sign in blue lettering marked the entrance to Hwagok Market (화곡시장). I passed fruit sellers with boxes of perfect-looking strawberries and passed into the covered market, where matching circular signs above each stall bore the name of the shop and a picture of what was sold there. The market followed the curve of the side street that it was on, and with spring temperatures rising a slightly fishy smell was returning to the market air. There were abstract piles of octopus, steaming yellow and maroon corn, an ajumma shucking clams, vaguely obscene tubes of intestine, and enormous cauldrons of soups.

Not far from the other end of the market was Byeotgol Park (볏골공원), most easily accessed by going out Exit 4, turning left on Kkachisan-ro (까치산로), and then right on Kkachisan-ro-4-gil (까치산로4길). The park has a rather unusual setup, as it sits on a rise with a parking garage directly underneath. It wasn’t a bad little place, though, with a grassy knoll spotted with trees, what looked to be a splash fountain (not yet turned on), and a dozen or so kids running around the playground equipment. Another one, off by himself, was busy trying to break a branch off from one of the shrubs, for which he was yelled at by an ajeosshi on a park bench. The kid didn’t pay the old man any mind, however, and eventually the ajeosshi gave up.

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If instead of turning left on Kkachisan-ro you continue straight you’ll arrive at Kkachisan (까치산) proper, a small hill through which Hwagok Tunnel passes. If you hike up the stairs to the top you’ll find a small park area with benches and a gazebo, but there’s not much of a view in this part of town, so you might not find it worth the effort. You might, however, notice the apartment building on the west side of the tunnel that for God knows what reason was named Popcorn House (팝콘 하우스).

곤충박물관 충우 (Insect Museum Chung-u)

Exit 5

Straight on Gangseo-ro (강서로)

www.stagbeetles.com

Phone: 02) 2601-3998

Museum Hours | March – October: 9:30 – 18:00, November – February: 10:00 – 17:00; Closed holidays and the 2^nd and 4^th Sunday and 1^st and 3^rd Thursday of every month

Admission | Adults – 3,000, Groups of 15 or more – 2,500, Kids under 4 and Handicapped – Free

Hwagok Market (화곡시장)

Exit 3

Byeotgol Park (볏골공원)

Exit 4

Left on Kkachisan-ro (까치산로), Right on Kkachisan-ro-4-gil (까치산로4길)

Kkachisan (까치산)

Exit 4

Straight on Gangseo-ro (강서로)

Tags:Gangseo-gu, Line 5, market, museum, park, shopping
Posted in Gangseo-gu, Line 5 | 2 Comments »

Hangangjin Station (한강진역) Line 6 – Station #631

March 10, 2013

Practically every neighborhood in Seoul undergoes changes on a weekly basis, some quickly, some slowly. Hangangjin is one of the quick ones, and is steadily turning itself into one of the trendiest, most culturally fresh areas of the city.

If any one thing can be said to have kickstarted this transformation, it’s likely the arrival of the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (삼성미술관 Leeum) in 2004, which, among other things, shows that once in a while Samsung does something more than just make money.

Located just a short walk down Itaewon-ro-55-gil (이태원로55길) near Exit 1, the first thing visitors encounter is the outdoor sculpture garden, which, at the time of my visit featured a trio of pieces by the renowned London-based Indian artist Anish Kapoor, co-designer of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower that twists above London’s Olympic Village and who was the subject of Leeum’s current Special Exhibition. The first piece I came to was titled ‘Vertigo’ (‘현기증’), a pair of curved stainless steel rectangles. Like your breakfast spoon, their concave side inverted and flipped everything they reflected, messing with the viewer’s perspective and causing a mildly unstable feeling. The structures’ convex sides sat about two meters apart and reflected each other, creating a Russian nesting doll of the same image, each progressively smaller than the last. In addition to ‘Vertigo,’ the garden also held ‘Tall Tree and the Eye’ (‘큰 나무와 눈’), stacked stainless steel orbs like air bubbles rising from the deep, and ‘Sky Mirror’ (‘하늘 거울’), which did exactly as its name implied.

The museum itself is trisected, three different permanent collections in three different structures by three different internationally acclaimed architects. Museum 1, designed by Mario Botta, houses the Leeum’s collection of traditional Korean art, which contains some three-dozen designated national treasures. Visitors begin their tour on the fourth floor, where the celadon (청자) collection is housed before proceeding back down to the lobby, through the collections of Buncheong ware and porcelain (분청사기 / 백자), paintings and calligraphy (고서화), and Buddhist art and metal works (불교미술 / 금속공예) on subsequent floors. Exhibition spaces are nearly completely dark, the only light coming from subtle spot lights that illuminate individual vases and scrolls, giving the galleries a solemn, almost religious feel.

Museum 2, its building the product of Jean Nouvel, holds the modern art collection. The second floor houses Korean modern art (한국 근현대미술) – quite likely a great unknown to anyone who isn’t Korean, the first floor international modern art, and the basement contemporary art. It’s an impressive collection, as a quick listing of names will attest: Koons, de Kooning, Rothko, kimsooja, Twombly, Giacometti, Bacon, Gilbert & George, Nam June Paik, Basquiat, Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Zeng Fanzhi, Damien Hurst. My personal favorite in the collection – not the best or most groundbreaking, but the one that spoke most closely to my interests and that I stared at the longest – was a work by the Korean artist 박이소 (Bahc Yiso) called ‘드넓은 세상’ (‘Wide World Wide’). On an enormous light blue canvas, above a map formed by their names written out in Hangeul in a barely visible sky blue script were pinned hundreds of small white papers, each bearing the name of a place that managed to at once capture both the exoticism of the world’s geography and the fecundity of its languages: Araraquara, Erhchiang, Nagykanizsa, Bobo Dioulasso, Oshkosh.

The third section of the museum, the Samsung Child Education and Culture Center (삼성아동교육문화센터), was designed by Rem Koolhaas.

The second institution serving as a major cultural anchor for the neighborhood is Blue Square (블루스퀘어) performing arts complex. Accessible directly from the station, it is Korea’s largest performing arts hall, with space both for musicals and concerts as well as cafes, a florist, a candy shop, restaurants, and souvenir shops. ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ was in the middle of a run during my visit, and the main lobby had displays of costumes, a Phantom photo booth, and fake roses curling around the bases of the stairs’ handrails.

Coincidence or no, Samsung has their enormous hands heavily involved in Blue Square as well, with the two main theaters poetically being called the Samsung Electronics Hall (삼성전자홀) and the Samsung Card Hall (삼성카드홀). All the romance that went into naming those also went into the building itself, which, in stark contrast to the Leeum, is incredibly bland architecturally, its mirrored blue glass façade making it look more like the resident of a suburban office park than a theater. Offering a little bit of contrast is the structure behind the main building called NEMO, which, aping Platoon Kunsthalle, is made of orange and yellow shipping containers and was hosting a children’s performance called ‘Hello! Madagascar.’

The Leeum and Blue Square are indicative of the greater Itaewon area’s tendency over the last few years to get less and less scruffy, a tendency that’s well apparent in the Hangangjin neighborhood, particularly as you get closer to Itaewon. If five years ago you had told me that Comme de Garçons would open their Seoul flagship store here and not in Apgujeong, I never would have believed you. But there it is, selling its 400,000 won-plus hoodies just a few steps past the turnoff for the Leeum. And just a bit further down Itaewon-ro (이태원로) is Beaker, which pairs a Williamsburg aesthetic with Cheongdam prices: Band of Outsider flannels, bike accessories, 33,000 won soda can-sized bottles of artisanal shampoo.

Not every new wine bar, restaurant, and boutique here is wallet emptying, thankfully. Shops like Millimeter Milligram, not far from Exit 3, add to the offbeat, artistic atmosphere with quirky stationary, bags, and art supplies, and plenty of cafes provide a place to pause between shops or exhibitions. One café that particularly stands out is Take Out Drawing (with another location in Noksapyeong), which, in addition to using organic and fair-trade products, also offers two-month artist residences, the second half of which include exhibitions of the residents’ work. The café’s ‘newspaper’ has, alongside the menu, small profiles of current artists in residence in both Korean and English.

When it comes to eating in Hangangjin, Brazilian churrascarias, Japanese izakayas, and Spanish tapas joints, among others, contribute to an internationalized dining scene. Hangangjin’s cosmopolitanism is just as evident if you turn off Itaewon-ro onto Daesagwan-ro (대사관로), or Embassy Street. Running southeast from Itaewon-ro, it’s, naturally, dotted with embassies – Thailand, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire – as well as the Lao ambassador’s residence, more international restaurants, and cafes and boutiques catering to the locals.

Daesagwan-ro connects to Hannam-dae-ro (한남대로), and walking along the latter between the station and the river gives you a chance to play a bit of embassy spotting. (If you cross Hannam-ro via the pedestrian bridge near the Daesagwan intersection you’ll also get clear views of N Seoul Tower, the minarets and onion dome of the Itaewon mosque, and the Seoul Finance Tower in Gangnam.) Among others I was able to pick out the flags of Vietnam, Spain, Burma, Bulgaria, and Italy, which, almost too neatly, had an olive Vespa parked out front. In addition to the embassies, Hannam-dae-ro (or, rather, down long driveways leading off of it) is also where you’ll find the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court’s Residence, the Speaker of the National Assembly’s Official Residence, and the official residence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the last of these gated and watched over by a soldier with an extremely large gun.

If instead of turning right down Hannam-dae-ro after leaving Exit 2 you cross the pedestrian bridge that runs over it, to your left you’ll see a Harley-Davidson store that stands in front of a small residential neighborhood. Turning down the small side street there, Hannam-dae-ro-40-gil (한남대로40길), took me past a small collection of stone statues – horses, pagodas, a reclining Buddha – and soon led to an entrance to Eungbong Neighborhood Park (응봉근린공원), a large wooded hill cut through with walking paths. There were also some tennis courts, badminton courts, playgrounds, and a square, but most of the park was left to the trees.

Of course, for an even bigger park, there’s always nearby Namsan Park (남산공원), which is easy to get to from Hangangjin. Just go out Exit 1, U-turn, and follow the sidewalk until it ends. There go up the steps to the left, cross the street, and you’re just outside the park. At that point there was a sign pointing to a mineral spring (남산약수터), only 200 meters away. I followed the sign up the driveway of an adjacent wedding hall, and by the time I made it past the parking lot things had already gotten remarkably calm and quiet, the traffic on Hannam-dae-ro just a faint murmur. The path to the spring then took me past a small artificial stream, its water frozen where the course led over a small drop.

The first time I arrived at the spring I walked right past it, not realizing what it was. My image of the spring was that it would be something bubbling up from the ground, but the Namsan spring instead poured out of two narrow metal pipes that jutted out of a stone wall on a wooden platform. (Unfortunately, the spring water here is not fit for drinking.) As an elderly hiker pulled a radio playing old pop music out of his bag and carried it with him to the adjacent exercise equipment, water poured out of the pipes in a steady stream, falling into stone basins underneath. One of the basins was crusted up with ice around its edges; the other was not, as the water flowing out of that pipe had better aim, and poured neatly into the drain.

Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (삼성미술관 Leeum)

Exit 1

Right on Itaewon-ro-55-gil (이태원로55길)

leeum.samsungfoundation.org

Phone: 02) 2014-6901

Hours | 10:30 – 18:00, Closed Mondays, New Year’s Day, Seollal, and Chuseok

Admission | Adults – Permanent Exhibition 10,000, Special Exhibition 8,000, Daypass 14,000; Kids, Seniors, Handicapped – Permanent Exhibition 6,000, Special Exhibition 5,000, Daypass 8,000 (9,000 for kids)

Blue Square (블루스퀘어)

Exit 2 or accessible directly from the station

www.bluesquare.kr

Take Out Drawing (Hannam Branch)

Exit 3

Straight on Itaewon-ro (이태원로)

http://www.takeoutdrawing.com

Phone: 02) 797-3139

Hours | 11:00 – 00:00

Eungbong Neighborhood Park (응봉근린공원)

Exit 2

Right on Hannam-dae-ro (한남대로), cross pedestrian bridge to the left, right on Hannam-dae-ro-40-gil (한남대로40길)

Namsan Park (남산공원)

Exit 1

U-turn, Straight on Itaewon-ro (이태원로), Up stairs and cross Soweol-ro (소월로) to park

Tags:art, Line 6, museum, park, restaurant, shopping, Yongsan-gu
Posted in Line 6, Yongsan-gu | 2 Comments »

Jegi-dong Station (제기동역) Line 1 – Station #125

January 6, 2013

My girlfriend and I got off a mid-afternoon train at Jegi-dong Station along with about 40 other people. From a quick scan down the platform, it looked as if we were the only ones under 50. This may not be especially surprising, given that Line 1 runs through older parts of town popular with an older crowd, but of those Line 1 stations, Jegi-dong in particular has a close association and a long history with the elderly, the ill, and the convalescing. This is most apparent at the neighborhood’s well-known herbal medicine market, but the tradition goes back much further.

Northwest of the station, out Exit 1, and right on Muhak-ro (무학로) is Anam Rotary (안암로터리). Now an area packed with cheap restaurants, bars, cafes, cell phone shops, and other things betraying its proximity to Korea University (고려대학교), it was once the site of the Bojewon (보제원), the Joseon royal hospital, as a plaque on the rotary’s southeast side notes. Located in a spot convenient to travelers approaching Dongdaemun (동대문), the city’s east gate, from 1393 to 1895 the hospital gave free accommodation to travelers and provided medicine for the sick, as well as hosting the occasional banquet for a retired statesman.

Those looking to learn more about the history of medical care and Oriental medicine in Korea can visit the Seoul Yangnyeongsi Herb Medicine Museum (서울약령시한의약박물관), a block or so down Wangsan-ro (왕산로) from Exit 3. So you say to yourself, ‘I am not one of those’? Well, I said that too but I went anyway, and I’m kind of glad I did. A visit to the museum begins overdramatically, with a brief video of symbols and herbs whooshing across a wall-size screen, before the screen reveals itself to actually be a door and opens, ushering visitors into the exhibit hall. Once inside, however, things are more modest, and better. For starters, the museum is small. An hour would likely be enough for an exhaustive viewing. (There are additional facilities in the museum where you can sample herb tea, grind your own medicine and get a health checkup.) It’s also neatly arranged and informative, while also recognizing that most visitors aren’t looking for overly exhaustive explanations. Most, though not all, exhibits have basic English explanations.

We were escorted into the exhibit by a smiling, grandfatherly old attendant dressed in everyday hanbok who spoke fluent Japanese and enough English to endear himself. Inside there’s a miniature recreation of Bojewon, old tools and medical tracts, information on famous Korean physicians, and the Dongindo (동인도), an anatomical chart for acupuncture. The most eye-catching display is the jars of all the various herbs and animal (parts) used in traditional Korean medicine, including, but not limited to, seahorses, frogs, geckos, bats, and deer penis.

Considering the inclusion of some rather unique ingredients in traditional medicine, it may behoove potential shoppers to pay the museum a visit before heading to the Seoul Herbal Medicine Market (서울약령시), just outside Exit 2. Past the merchants clustered around the exit selling Korean sweets, fruits, and dried fish, the side streets to the north are about the closest thing to a real-life Diagon Alley you’re likely to find anywhere. Tart-sweet odors fill the air; bundles of sticks and twigs dangle from metal grilles; foot-long dried fish bound together at their tails hang suspended upside-down, their open mouths fanning out at angles in a toothy bouquet; bags of roots, mosses, and dried flowers, the lips of the bags rolled down, sit on tiers outside of shops; elk and deer horns rest on shelves; ginseng floats suspended in bulbous glass vases full of alcohol, their tendrils drooping and splayed like the map of a river delta; and grand wood Chinese medicine chests nearly take up entire walls, segmented into dozens and dozens of identical drawers, each with one or two Chinese characters on either side of a plain knob, concealing the potions kept inside.

Formalized herbal medicine markets were first established during the reign of King Hyojong (1649-59) in Daegu, Jeonju, and Wonju, and were held twice a year, in spring and fall. They spread and then contracted, and now there are two such markets in Korea: the one in Daegu and the one in Seoul. The Jegi-dong market covers 265,000 square meters, has over 1,000 clinics, wholesalers, and resale shops, and deals 70% of the Oriental medicine in the country. Most of the herbs and remedies for sale here come from China, and most things are grown on herbal medicine farms, as a worker at Songgang Oriental Clinic (송강한의원) told me as I looked at five-centimeter diameter cylinders of centipedes tied together. There were some from China, some from North Korea, and some from South Korea, which, I was informed, are the best. Drinking the water that they’ve been boiled in is supposed to be good for your back, rheumatism, and stomach cancer. Or so I’m told. I’m going to have to take that one on faith. Things that may be rather more palatable are what Songgang’s employee told me are good for winter colds and flus: Chinese bellflower (도라지), omija (오미자), and liriope (맥문동).

The Herbal Medicine Market is a vital piece of tradition in the modern city, probably one of the few places where you’ll still sometimes see men strolling about in hanbok, but it’s just one part of an entire neighborhood of markets. The sidewalk in front of the Herbal Medicine Market is a riot of butchers, grain sellers, octopus tentacles on ice, and spillover medicinal goods, like the jagged aloe leaves laid out at one stall. Following the sidewalk and then crossing Gosanja-ro (고산자로) brings you to Gyeongdong Market (경동시장), an enormous place that, much like Jungang Market (중앙시장) at Sindang Station had, stunned me simply by virtue of its existence. It was huge, but I’d never ever heard of it, likely because this too is a locals-only place – northeast Seoulites getting groceries and that’s it.

Dusk and a light rain were falling when I arrived, and bare light bulbs in market stalls were flicking on, giving the streets and interior aisles a sheen. A string of ginseng sellers had roots piled up on tables, as did the chicken seller with dozens of whole raw birds. Ears of corn were half shucked, displaying the purple kernels to passers-by; beans sat in big mesh bags and ruby red apples in cardboard boxes. Chopped-off heads and tails filled a white bag at a fishmonger’s stall, and someone else sold brown arrowroot (생칡즙) and camouflage-green motherwort juice (익모초즙) from the same type of plastic containers that dispense slushees at 7-11. My girlfriend, a born-and-raised Seoulite, said the market felt more like China to her than Korea, and I had to agree.

Gyeongdong runs into Cheongnyangni Wholesale Market (청량리 청과물 도매시장), so that it’s hard to tell where one ends and one begins, but the latter seemed to be a bit closer to Cheongnyangni Station, so we’ll save it for when we visit that stop.

As perhaps is to be expected, much of the neighborhood has a pretty old school vibe, and we first noticed this before we even left the station, where an old 차타는곳 sign hung by Exit 5. Just outside the exit is the Jeongneung Stream (정릉천), lined by old, rundown three-story apartments. We visited its lower stretch when we were at Yongdu Station, and as we’d noticed then, the part near Jegi-dong had a very low water level, trickling through mud and the space between stepping stones. Further upstream it was stagnant and algal. Some older neighborhood residents were using the streamside exercise equipment or reading the paper under a bridge.

Paralleling the watercourse north along Muhak-ro, a block down Wangsan-ro from Exit 1, I first came to Yongdu Market (용두시장), near the corner of the two streets. At Muhak-ro-37-gil (무학로37길) we noticed a little stand holding a baby pine tree that had been painted with an advertisement: 이발 컷트 4,000 (Haircut 4,000 won). The barbershop in question was located in a decrepit-looking building – gray paint peeling everywhere, revealing concrete just a shade darker underneath it like a blotchy rash – that also housed a tiny restaurant and the small Yongdu Market. In addition to 4,000 won cuts, the barbershop offered a 1,000 won discount if you were over 80 and coloring for 5,000.

Surrounding the market were machinists and smithies scattered about in equally old buildings. A group of old men was playing Go Stop inside one doorway and a separate group of old women was doing the same as they cleaned vegetables. Other machine shops were on Muhak-ro on the way north to Anam Rotary, including one where the smooth croon of Frank Sinatra was pouring out of the stereo.

On the southwest side of the Muhak-ro – Wangsan-ro intersection is the Korea Aviation College (한국항공전문학교) and on the street outside, sitting on a wheeled frame was a used turbofan engine, rather banged up, but oddly impressive in a I’ve never actually seen a turbofan engine, let alone just sitting on the streets of Seoul kind of way.

Before you get to that, however, coming from the station (Exit 6) you’ll notice another piece of sidewalk art: a gold-colored statue of a saluting baby squid marking, as is noted on the statue’s base, 용두동쭈꾸미특화거리, Yongdu-dong Jjukkumi Specialty Street. The area around this side of the intersection is known for having a number of restaurants that serve jjukkumi, and my girlfriend and I went to one, 나정순할매쭈꾸미(Na Jeong-sun Halmae Jukkumi) for dinner. As we took our shoes off one of the workers asked us how many were in our party, and before we even sat down the jjukkumi in its blood red sauce was on our table’s burner, cooking away.

The jjukkumi came with sesame leaves (깻잎), and each table had bins of garlic, pickled garlic, chopped carrots, ssamjang (쌈장), and a wasabi and soy sauce. I went through a lot of carrots. I love spicy food, and have a pretty high heat tolerance, but the jjukkumi, like nakji bokkeum (낙지볶음), was one of the spicier things I’ve had in Korea, with a heat that accumulated so that the first bite wasn’t particularly potent but each subsequent one built a little bit on the heat from the last one so that by the end of the meal I was grateful for the bokkeumbap (볶음밥) that used up the rest of the sauce and neutralized much of its heat. And I’d happily submit myself to it all over again tomorrow, a submission I’d hardly be alone in. We arrived just before 6 p.m. and got the second to last table, and the place was ceaselessly full until we left, 나정순 herself steadily turning people away with a brisk ‘No tables!’

Bojewon Site (보제원터)

Exit 1

Right on Muhak-ro (무학로) to Anam Rotary (안암로터리)

Seoul Yangnyeongsi Herb Medicine Museum (서울약령시한의약박물관)

Exit 3

Straight on Wangsan-ro (왕산로)

Hours | March – October: 10:00 – 18:00; November – February: 10:00 – 17:00; Closed Mondays

Admission | Free

museum.ddm.go.kr

Phone: 02) 3293-4900~3

Fax: 02) 3293-4905

Seoul Herbal Medicine Market (서울약령시)

Exit 2

Gyeongdong Market (경동시장)

Exit 2

Straight on Wangsan-ro (왕산로)

Jeongneung Stream (정릉천)

Exit 5

Yongdu Market (용두시장)

Exit 1

Straight on Wangsan-ro (왕산로), right on Muhak-ro (무학로), left on Hanbit-ro (한빛로)

Yongdu-dong Jjukkumi Specialty Street (용두동주꾸미특화거리)

Exit 6

Straight on Wangsan-ro (왕산로)

나정순할매쭈꾸미(Na Jeong-sun Halmae Jukkumi)

Exit 6

Straight on Wangsan-ro (왕산로), left on Muhak-ro (무학로)

Phone: 용두 Branch – 02) 928-0231, 제기 Branch – 02) 957-3310

Tags:Dongdaemun-gu, history, Line 1, market, museum, park, restaurant, shopping
Posted in Dongdaemun-gu, Line 1 | 4 Comments »

Children’s Grand Park Station (어린이대공원역) Line 7 – Station #726

October 21, 2012

About halfway up the Exit 3 escalator, I heard a loud crunch followed by a sound familiar to anyone who’s ever floored the gas pedal only to have their car’s wheels spin uselessly in the mud. As I neared the top I could see a cloud of white smoke wafting across the sidewalk, and stepping off the escalator I saw the source: a white minivan had completely crossed the centerline near the intersection and struck a black sedan head-on. The driver of the minivan wasn’t moving from their seat, either stunned or wary of getting out of their vehicle and facing the rightfully enraged driver of the sedan, who was being restrained from approaching the minivan by the driver of another car while the sedan driver’s traumatized daughter, wearing a backpack, her face glossy with tears, screamed at her dad.

Despite the reflexive rawness of the emotions and action, from an objective point of view things weren’t so bad. It looked like no one had been hurt, and even the two vehicles weren’t in that bad of condition. It was even rather impressive how others had responded – while the one man restrained the angry victim, preventing things from escalating, two other drivers were directing cars around the accident, helping to keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible.

After rubbernecking for a bit I kept walking down Gwangnaru-ro (광나루로), which runs along the north side of Konkuk University’s (건국대학교) campus. We’ll save explorations of the uni for when we actually get to the subway station named after it (especially since there’s another university we’re visiting in this post), but if you’re looking to get to Kon-dae’s back gate, that’s just a quick right down Gwangnaru-ro-24-gil (광나루로24길), by the big green KU sign. As you’d expect from a street near a university gate, Gwangnaru-ro-24-gil is lined with cafes, PC bangs, print shops, bars, and cheap restaurants, as well as tall Korean firs. Not a bad place to pause and watch the students walking to and from campus.

The university influence, both Kon-dae’s and nearby Sejong University’s, shows up on Neungdong-ro (능동로) where, south of the station, a surprising number of quirky and hip boutiques and salons staffed by twentysomethings line the sidewalks underneath rows of leafy trees. Just outside of Exit 4 you’ll also find University Culture Street (대학문화의거리), administratively known as Neungdong-ro-19-gil (능동로19길), a long strip full of inexpensive restaurants and a mix of bars, noraebangs, and the occasional shop. Predictably, it was pretty dead on a Sunday afternoon, but it looked like it might be a pretty lively place on a weekend night. The street runs for several blocks, all the way to Dongil-ro (동일로), and as you go west, away from the station, more and more love motels start popping up, and business cards featuring girls clad only in lingerie and come hither looks dot the pavement.

Just outside of Exit 5 is Gwangjin Square (광진광장), the entrance to which is marked by a large steel sculpture entitled ‘The Dream of Gwangjin-gu (광진구의 꿈)’. Shaped like a crescent moon that’s been cleaved vertically down the middle, the work is by Yi Sang-min (이상민) and Yi Sang-ok (이상옥).

The triangular park is mostly covered by a large paved plaza where a pair of elementary school boys played net-less badminton and a lone skateboarder worked on basic tricks. Gwangjin-gu is sister city with Ereğli, Turkey, and on the north side of the plaza is a gift from the Black Sea town, a square structure of light gray marble that I believe is the type of fountain used for wudu, Islamic pre-prayer ablutions, though I could be wrong. The fountain has gold and khaki green detailing and two faucets on each of its four sides, half at hand washing height, the others with low basins for washing the feet.

Benches edge the park’s western side, and two old men were stretched out on them, taking naps. It’s at that end that you’ll also find a stone engraved with the poem ‘Gwangnaru (광나루)’ by 황금찬 (Hwang Geum-chan).

Only a few steps north, and smack bang outside of Exit 6, is Sejong University (세종대학교). Wikipedia tells me it’s known for its hotel management, animation, and rhythmic gymnastics programs, which is a fabulous combination.

From just outside the exit, the two most noticeable campus structures strike a befuddling contrast. First, there’s the university’s main entrance, marked by a traditional Korean gate with twelve pillars and brightly painted eaves. Some distance behind it, its lower third obscured by trees and other buildings, a soaring Italianate bell tower reaches into the sky, looking like it’d be more at home in Salerno than Seoul. Approaching the tower, you see that it pairs with a similarly Italianate chapel – sandy stone blocks partly covered with ivy and capped by a red tile roof. The low wall behind the chapel is covered in student murals, most of them reproductions of Klimt paintings.

The Sejong-dae campus is quite appealing, with lots of trees, and in addition to a pick-up soccer game being held on the dirt pitch, several families were using the grounds to take their young kids for a walk and perhaps just get away from the commotion across the street. If you find yourself on campus on a weekday, you might consider stopping by the Sejong Museum (세종박물관) where the university holds a large collection of royal regalia, paintings, pottery, and more inside a squat building on the campus’ north side. Fronting the museum is a lily pond with a pair of matching fountains and a few ducks, four of them asleep on the bank, bills turned backwards and tucked into their feathers.

Just past the university’s front gate, a folding table had been set up on the sidewalk where college-aged artists were painting cartoon characters on the faces and hands of little kids. They were sponging up some of the business spilling over from the kidsplosion taking place in and outside Children’s Grand Park (어린이대공원) on the other side of Neungdong-ro. Immediately outside of Exit 1 an old man in a baseball cap was holding a bouquet of Ppororo, Hello Kitty, Coco Mong, and Tyrannosaurus Rex balloons, while other nearby vendors sold cotton candy, kimbap rolls, assorted pojangmacha snacks, and even beer for the withering parent.

Depending on how you feel about children, Children’s Grand Park may be either the most adorable place in the city or enough to make you call a pox upon Barry White, Marvin Gaye, and anyone else who was ever guilty of aiding and abetting procreation. However, if your sentiments lean towards the latter, don’t be too put off by the scene around the entrance. Yes, strollers may be as abundant as shopping carts at a supermarket, but the park is vast and there are sections where you can find yourself nearly alone and out of range of shrieks, giggles, and any other offending noise, you Grinch you. In actuality, although most visitors are families with young kids, the park is also a popular place for retirees and young couples on dates. The fact that the park is free (with the exception of rides at the amusement park) may have a lot to do with this.

If you’re bringing your own kid but didn’t bring your own stroller (and your kid refuses to man up and walk) there’s a stroller rental just inside the front gate. Conversely, if you did bring your bike or scooter you can check it at the entrance, along with your pet, though you may want to leave the latter at home, as pets are chucked in what are essentially coin lockers.

The 530,000 square meters of Children’s Grand Park sits on land that was, once upon a time, the site of the royal tomb for Empress Sunmyeong, the wife of Emperor Sunjong, who was the last emperor of Korea and the final ruler of the Joseon Yi Dynasty prior to annexation by Japan. Sunmyeong never actually served as empress, dying in 1904, three years before Sunjong assumed the throne, but she was granted the title posthumously. She was first buried here, but in 1926 her remains were exhumed and transferred to Sunjong’s royal tomb in Namyangju. You’ll still find, just south of the main entrance, a collection of Stone Monuments from Yugangwon in the Graveyard of Empress Sunmyeong (순명비유강원석물), Seoul Tangible Cultural Property No. 134.

The more recent history of the park saw it opened on Children’s Day in 1973 and, after undergoing renovations, reopened on the same day in 2009. It now has attractions ranging from an amusement park to a zoo to a botanical garden.

After you pass through the main entrance, one of the first things you’ll come to is a large lily pond with zigzagging boardwalks running across it. Peer over the edge and you’ll see numerous koi and a few ducks. Beyond that is an enormous dancing fountain where a number of kids stood at the rope barrier, close enough to get splashed, while others, preferring to stay dry, watched from further back.

Northeast of the fountain are some flower gardens and large grass fields where people were picnicking and where some families had pitched tents for the day. The fields here are big enough that a group of teenagers was able to organize a kickball game and play unimpeded. At the edge of the field visitors will find another monument, this one a statue of 송진우 (Song Chinwoo) (1890-1945) that was erected in 1983. Song served as principal of Choong-ang High School (중앙고등학교) and, as the plaque beneath the statue put it, ‘masterminded’ the March 1^st Independence Movement. He later became the president and publisher of the Dong-a Ilbo Newspaper (동아일보) before earning the dubious distinction of being the first victim of political assassination in Korea’s modern history, done in by Han Hyun-woo (한현우). He is buried in the National Cemetery.

Past the DOM Art Hall and Adventure World (모험의나라) and its playground equipment, you’ll find the compound’s Amusement Park (놀이동산) in the far northeast corner, easily the liveliest part of the park. Since this is an amusement park targeted mainly at kids and since it’s on a small patch of land, almost everything here is very compact and slightly miniaturized. There’s a rollercoaster, but it’s a small rollercoaster. There’s a Viking ride, but it’s a kid-sized Viking ride. Parts of the sky tram are so low that you almost worry you’ll hit your head on them. Two tiny cars run in two tiny intersecting circles at a speed so slow that it’s frustrating to watch. There’s also a small fleet of the sort of rides that you’ll sometimes see outside places like Wal-Mart in the States: little vehicles or horses that judder and shake back and forth when you drop a coin in.

There are rides that adults can enjoy – the rollercoaster, bumper cars, swings (and maybe a Ferris wheel, but this wasn’t operating when I visited) – but mostly this is the preserve of those who usually fall on the wrong side of the ‘You must be this tall to ride this ride’ line. Two things made me desperately wish I was about one meter shorter and twenty years younger. One was a sort of bungee slingshot where kids were strapped into a harness and then slung skywards to bounce up and down in the air for several minutes at a go. The other was called ‘Water Walk (워터 워크),’ and this consisted of a large wading pool, a large helping of brilliance, and a touch of Jesus. Kids would clamber into a big transparent bubble before an attendant zipped it up and attached a tube to pump air in. They’d then give it a shove into the pool and a mad scramble to stay upright inside the bubble would ensue. It looked insanely fun.

The park’s other major attraction is its zoo, which, it has to be said, is hit and miss. On the one hand, the enclosures for the big cats are fairly decent. The male and female lion seemed perfectly content in their surroundings – he chilled out in the grass, she on a rock – and the two Bengal tigers slowly prowled around theirs. The elephant pen could have been bigger but the two elephants – donated by former Khmer Rouge member, current prime minister of Cambodia, and all around shady dude Hun Sen – at least had a pool and a waterfall, which they seemed to prefer to stand behind, rather than under, facing the enclosure’s door and swaying back and forth like mental patients in a padded room.

In the same complex, the three hyenas seemed to have gone a bit mad with boredom as well. Their enclosure was too small, and one of the animals kept loping back and forth in its horse-like way just in front of the glass while another repeatedly jogged up to the rear wall, hopped up onto its rear legs, and propped itself up with its right forepaw before dropping back down, jogging away, and then turning around and doing the same thing again.

The enclosures for many of the birds – owls, pheasants, a black vulture, a peacock – were poor too, little more than concrete cylinders with one or two perches, so small that they precluded any real flying. On the other hand, the partially indoor waterfowl enclave was quite big, and its premises mixed Canadian geese, ducks, herons, storks, egrets, and at least one Japanese crane in a sort of avian United Nations.

Besides what I’ve already mentioned, you can also find a terraced splash pool, Character World, concert hall, and more at Children’s Grand Park, enough to keep you busy for an entire day, or two. And while it helps to be too young to legally engage in a wide variety of other fun activities it’s by no means necessary, provided you can summon your inner child or at least tolerate everyone else’s.

Konkuk University (건국대학교)

Exit 3

Right on Gwangnaru-ro-24-gil (광나루로24길)

University Culture Street (대학문화의거리)

Exit 4

Right on Neungdong-ro-19-gil (능동로19길)

Gwangjin Square (광진광장)

Exit 5

Sejong University (세종대학교) and Sejong Museum (세종박물관)

Exit 6

Children’s Grand Park (어린이대공원)

Exit 1

www.childrenpark.or.kr

Hours | 5:00 – 22:00

Zoo Hours | 10:00 – 17:00

Admission| Free, but tickets must be purchased for amusement park rides

Tags:art, Gwangjin-gu, history, Line 7, monument, museum, nightlife, park, school
Posted in Gwangjin-gu, Line 7 | 9 Comments »

Samseong Station (삼성역) Line 2 – Station #219

August 26, 2012

Between 1964 and 1989 the German chronobiologist Rütger Wever conducted a series of experiments in an underground bunker in Andechs, Germany, in which over 400 test subjects were deprived of all external time cues – variations in light, temperature, electromagnetic fields – anything that might signal to them what time of day it was or how much time had passed. The aim of these experiments, and others like them, was to determine the body’s natural sleep cycle if all outside influences that typically determine sleeping and waking hours, both natural and artificial, were removed. What Wever found was that without external cues, humans’ circadian rhythms tend to drift away from the 24-hour day and adopt a cycle closer to 25 hours, meaning that within a couple weeks whatever subjects normally did during the day they’d then do at night, and vice versa.

Were Wever alive today, he might perform follow-up research where the same time cues are withheld but subjects are provided with shops, restaurants, theaters, and, just for good measure, a kimchi museum, to examine the physiological response in such a situation. Would subjects, presented with so many stimuli, extend their circadian rhythms beyond 25 hours? Would it still count as dinner and a movie if dates occurred at 10 a.m.? Would the subjects ever leave? These questions, and many more, could be answered at Coex.

Sprawling below several large Gangnam city blocks, Coex Mall (connected to the station between Exits 5 and 6) is the largest underground mall in Asia, at 85,000 square meters. And if you avoid the area near the main entrance and the food court with its large skylight, through which you can see the enormous Trade Tower rising, it’s entirely possible to immerse yourself in a near-Weverian bunker where light and temperature are constants and the only relevancy that time of day bears is whether you pay standard or matinee price for your movie ticket. In that way, Coex functions as something of an über-mall: a commercial environment where nothing outside it can be perceived to exist, and the only reality is the one of consumption, of shopping bags in one hand, ice cream cone in the other.

Coex does close at night so you can’t put your own circadian rhythm to the test, but merely entering the mall does seem to have some sort of effect on the body. Personally, any semblance of my normally reliable sense of direction completely disappears when I’m there. I’ve been to Coex Mall dozens of times, and yet every time I go I get utterly turned around. This is apparently not an uncommon problem, as there are plentiful touchscreen guides, and assistants at information desks speak into microphones when they answer questions as, presumably, most of the other people within earshot don’t know where they are either.

Although it’s underground, two things: The first is that it never feels claustrophobic. The innumerable lights, bouncing off all of the mall’s polished surfaces, make the low ceilings feel not quite so low. The second is that the mall is still a mall, which is to say that you probably already know what you can find there. Megabox and Uniqlo care not whether they are aboveground or below. A couple features do, however, differentiate Coex from its supra-terranean peers.

The quirkier of these is the Pulmuone Kimchi Field Museum (김치박물관), located on level B2 and covering ingredients, equipment, methods, variations, and everything else you ever wanted to know about kimchi but were too afraid to ask.

Near the entrance are examples of ancient historical tracts that expound on the production and benefits of kimchi, and an explanation that sukggakdugi is a good way of honoring and showing respect for the elderly because its tender flesh is easy on weak teeth. Over seven dozen varieties of kimchi are explained, and many are presented in plastic mock-ups of the type frequently seen in restaurant display cases. You can examine a variety of earthenware storage pots and, if so inclined, have your photo taken pretending to be fed kkakdugi by a hanbok wearing ajumma.

At the far end of the small museum, kimchi’s health benefits are explained, and a display of fermented food from around the world attempts to put kimchi in some sort of smelly global context, though you might call into question Pulmuone’s research after seeing the drawing of an Italian girl standing before the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Coliseum holding a tray of coffee, pizza, and a big plate of pickles. How this myth took hold here I have yet to figure out. Attention people of Korea: Italians do not eat pickles with pizza. In fact, in the four months I lived in Italy I don’t remember seeing any Italians eating any pickles ever. Nor do pizza and coffee go together, but that’s another story. Moving on.

For hardcore kimchiphiles, there’s a library in the museum, stocked with books, newspapers, and theses about the food, and apparently the museum publishes its own series, which includes research on food culture, both domestic and foreign. Prefer your kimchi on a plate as opposed to a book? A small tasting room offers up samples of several different varieties.

Arguably Coex’s best feature, the mall is home to Korea’s largest aquarium, Coex Aquarium (코엑스 아쿠아리움). The stats: 14,350 square meters; approximately 3,000 tons of water; 40,000 animals representing 650 unique species. These include not just tropical fish, sharks, and rays, but also bats, lizards, otters, penguins, and even a pair of squirrel monkeys.

The facility takes you through displays of environments that are de rigueur for aquariums – the Amazon, a mangrove, the deep ocean – but also has a pair of very Korean features that set it apart. The first, and the first area visitors walk through, is Korean in the literal sense, showcasing the peninsula’s marine environments, particularly the country’s riverine ecosystems. Especially interesting to my mind was the display showing the tiny fish that live in the water of flooded rice paddies.

The second feature, Korean in its eagerness to make things goofy and cute, is the Fish’s Wonderland section where small fish swim in tanks that occupy, among others, a Coke machine, a toilet, a refrigerator, and a washing machine. One tank is shaped like a harp and is fitted with sensors, so every time a fish crosses a ‘string’ a note is played.

Of course, the aquarium is popular with families and watching the reactions of kids can be as entertaining as watching the fish. At the piranha tank I looked on as a dad explained what the fish do to his three young kids who listened, wide-eyed. Dad then proceeded to suggest a rock-paper-scissors game; loser had to jump in the tank. Perhaps not thinking through the consequences fully, they eagerly agreed. When dad came out the loser and began looking around for a way into the tank his little girl let out a concerned shriek, before pops announced that, wouldn’t you know it, there was no door.

I’m a bit of an aquarium junkie – I’ll take an aquarium over a zoo any day – and Coex has a good one, but if there’s one knock on it it’s that some of the enclosures are pitifully small. The squirrel monkeys were limited to a cylindrical plexiglass cage that really wasn’t big enough, and for several minutes the aquarium’s beaver swam back and forth in its enclosure’s bit of water, a small strip that was maybe only twice its body length.

Big as the mall is, it’s only one part of the greater Coex complex. The development was initially limited to an exhibition center, finished in 1979, but has expanded to today include hotels, office towers, a department store, a serviced residence, and a casino. Undoubtedly the most prestigious part of the complex is the convention center, which in recent years has hosted, among other major events, a G-20 summit and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. Coex’s newest addition is the Coex Artium, a glass-walled building (so much for the experiment) adjacent to the mall’s main entrance that features a theater where musicals are staged.

Succinctly encapsulating the perpetual tension between tradition and modernity in Seoul, just across the street from Coex’s north side is the ancient Bongeun Temple (봉은사). To reach it, simply go out Exit 6, walk past the flock of national flags outside of the convention center on Yeongdong-daero (영동대로) to the intersection with Bongeunsa-ro (봉은사로). You’ll see it ahead on your left.

Taking foresight to extremes, Bongeunsa beat the Gangnam real estate boom by nearly half a millennium. The temple was founded by the Venerable Yeonhoe (연회국사가) in 794, and moved to its current location in 1562, before the area got trendy. Bongeunsa became the head temple of the Seon (선 or Zen) sect of Buddhism during the Joseon Dynasty, when the religion was under suppression by the Confucian government, and played an important role in the religion’s perseverance and revival, largely under the stewardship of the Venerable Bowu (보우스님). During the later Joseon Period, the Venerable Younggi (영기스님) enshrined 81 volumes of the Avatamsaka Sutra, carved on woodblock, in the Panjeon (판전 or Tripitaka Hall), which he had built to preserve and store scriptures.

Today Bongeunsa is comprised of over a dozen buildings, most of which are reconstructions following a 1939 fire and damage suffered during the Korean War. Fortunately, the Panjeon is not one of these. Bongeunsa also contains National Treasure No. 321, an incense burner, and several Seoul Tangible Cultural Properties.

My favorite of these can be found at the entrance, just past the stone elephants and inside the Jinyeomun (진여문 or ‘Gate of Suchness’): the Statues of the Four Celestial Kings (사천왕). These four wooden carvings depict the kings who, from the four cardinal directions, protect the Buddha’s teachings. Typically the members of this quartet are depicted as a fearsome foursome, but Bongeunsa’s stocky guardians, carved in 1746, look rather goofy, as they might be depicted in a cartoon retelling of the tradition. They form a good cop – bad cop dichotomy with the menacing door guards painted on the gate’s enormous doors.

Paper lanterns for the upcoming Buddha’s birthday celebrations had been strung up over the main path, and in the pond to my left were staked two more, these in the shape of fish. A group of stelae were to my right.

The main path leads to the Beopwang-ru (법왕루 or ‘Dharma King Pavilion’), which houses the Buddha and is used for morning ceremonies. It also houses 3,300 miniature statues of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, though more interesting to me was the fact that there was actually an ATM inside. It struck me as a bit of a grotesquerie at first, but as likely as not it was put in as a concession to the customers participating in Bongeunsa’s temple stay program, and perhaps to the temple staff as well, the latter being hard at work in offices in the Beopwang-ru, which looked just like any other office, save for the pictures of shaven, robed monks on the walls.

Between the Beopwang-ru and the Daewoong-jeon was a roofed courtyard where people lit joss sticks in front of a stone pagoda flanked by stone lanterns and two 15-foot paintings. Hanging from the courtyard’s roof were hundreds of red lanterns with green bottoms, looking like the fruits on an inverted tomato vine. The Daewoong-jeon (대웅전 or ‘Main Buddha Hall’) is the temple’s spiritual heart, where you’ll find the wooden statues of the Sakyamuni Trinity, dating from 1651 – squat characters with almost no necks, like the stevedores of the Buddhist world. A couple dozen people were praying and meditating inside the hall, and from the roof beams a pair of dragon heads poked out discreetly to gaze at the trio. Hundreds of tiny lights were set into the walls around the altar, and their light helped illuminate an impressive pair of 19^th century paintings.

‘Contrast’ is perhaps not strong enough a word to describe Bongeunsa versus its surroundings. While the traffic and commerce of Gangnam carries on just steps away, the faithful or the merely stressed can retreat to the temple’s peaceful grounds, filled with the chirping of birds, beautiful wooden buildings, trees, shrubs, and dozens and dozens of bushes of azaleas in white, red, pink, and purple. One of the most peaceful spots on the grounds is the Great Statue of Maitreya Buddha (미륵대불), a 23-meter representation of the future Buddha that gazes out over the complex and the tops of skyscrapers. A large maroon stone slab is set before it for people to pray on, and a handful were doing so when I came by, including one woman, devout and resourceful, who had propped open an umbrella on the ground next to her to keep the sun off when she was prostrating.

Just east of the statue is the compound’s oldest building, the Pan-jeon (판전 or Tripitaka Hall), where 3,438 sutra tablets are held. Unfortunately it was closed and I couldn’t get a look at these.

Simply walking around Bongeunsa is therapeutic, but for those wanting a fuller experience, visitors can participate in either a two-day, one-night Temple Stay (50,000 won), which includes a tea ceremony, Buddhist rosary making, and meditation, or in a two-hour Temple Life program (20,000 won) and go on a temple tour, meditate, and make a lotus lantern. Details and registration info are available on the temple’s website.

Of course, if they don’t make directly for Coex Mall, the scene that greets visitors to Samseong is much less sedate. The station is at the intersection of Yeongdong-daero and Teheran-ro (테헤란로), and the two boulevards are lined with soaring glass and steel towers, none more noticeable than the aforementioned Trade Tower with its indented middle sections. But small touches like the pansy-filled flower boxes mounted perfectly at nose-height on the light poles make things feel not quite so Spartan. It helps too if you get to see a taxi driver in a bad comb over jump roping on the sidewalk while waiting for a fare, as I did.

After going out Exit 7 and passing by the KEPCO headquarters I swung right on Bongeunsa-ro, and away from the main drags it could be surprisingly quiet. After one cluster of traffic passed I heard the ticking of a ping pong ball being hit back and forth coming from inside one of the buildings.

Just a couple blocks east of the station is the Tahn Stream (탄천), which is most easily reached by going straight from Exit 1 and down the stairs underneath the flyway. We’d come across the Tahn at Jangji Station as well, where it was reasonably pleasant, but in this area it’s really not. Wide and not particularly pretty, its only feature here is the walking and biking paths running alongside. It’s loomed over by bridges and elevated highways, and both banks are essentially parking lots, filled up with private vehicles and lots and lots of tour buses, presumably waiting to pick up their groups when their visit to Coex is done. You can see into the upper deck of nearby Jamsil Stadium – a game was going on and the mustard yellow seats were about half full – which is kind of neat, but if you’re looking to enjoy one of Seoul’s many streams you’d be better off going elsewhere.

After checking out the stream I went south from Exit 3 to visit Kring, an architecturally stunning ‘creative culture space’ housing a cinema, galleries, and event space. Kring means ‘circle’ in Dutch, and the building’s façade looks like ripples in a pond, or sound waves emanating from inside. I’d last visited the previous year when the Creators Project came through Seoul, but unfortunately Kring is now afgewerkt, which Google Translate tells me is Dutch for ‘finished.’ A sign on the front door said that it had been closed since December 31 of last year and was awaiting a buyer. When Liz passed by a couple weeks later it appeared that it had been snapped up by Prugio, possibly to be turned into showroom space.

Occasionally in the course of exploring we’ll stumble across something small and beautiful and totally unexpected and perhaps a little bit amazing, and this is one of the project’s biggest pleasures. After being disappointed at Kring, I was walking around the back streets of Daechi-dong (대치동) when I stumbled across a tiny park containing an incredible Gingko Tree and the Yeongsandan Monument (은행나무와 영산단 기념비). It can be reached by continuing past Kring from Exit 3, turning right on Dogok-ro (도곡로), and right again on Dogok-ro-87-gil (도곡로87길).

The gingko just might be the best tree in all of Seoul: 530 years old, 20 meters tall, and 4.8 meters in circumference. About six feet up from the base knotty limbs are grouped compactly together, and these extend upward into a vast, lush canopy, bathing almost the entire park in shade. Underneath it, a man was sitting on a bench reading one book, three others stacked by his side. It wasn’t hard to see why he’d chosen that spot to settle in for a long read; besides being cool and pleasant, the great tree lent the spot a certain dignity, and I imagined Joseon scholars doing similarly hundreds of years ago, preparing for the civil service exams.

In fact, the gingko tree does bear some historical significance. The neighborhood used to be the site of Hanti Village (한티마을 or Big Hill Village), and it was here that inhabitants would come to pray for the village’s prosperity, culminating in a yearly village ceremony on July 1^st of the Lunar Calendar. I have no idea how old they are, but in front of the tree there is still a small granite altar and stele. There’s no longer much need to entreat for Daechi-dong’s prosperity, but a few hours, or even a few minutes, spent contemplating the towering green canopy and enjoying the rare pleasure of something both ancient and natural, in a city that often seems to value neither, must surely be something close to prayer.

Coex Mall

Linked to station between Exits 5 and 6

www.coexmall.com

Pulmuone Kimchi Field Museum (김치박물관)

B2 Floor of Coex Mall

Hours | Tues – Sun 10:00 – 18:00; Closed Mondays, January 1, Lunar New Year’s, Chuseok, Christmas

Admission | Adults – 3,000 won, Youth – 2,000, Kids 4 and under – free

02) 6002-6456

www.kimchimuseum.or.kr

Coex Aquarium (코엑스 아쿠아리움)

Main floor of Coex Mall

Hours | 10:00 – 20:00 every day, last entry at 19:00

Admission | Adults – 17,500 won, Youth – 14,500, Children – 11,000

02) 6002-6200

www.coexaqua.com

Bongeun Temple (봉은사)

Exit 6

Straight on Yeongdong-daero (영동대로), left on Bongeunsa-ro (봉은사로)

02) 3218-4826 (Korean), 02) 3218-4895 (English)

www.bongeunsa.org

Temple Stays and Temple Life programs are available. See website for details.

Tahn Stream (탄천)

Exit 1

Straight on Teheran-ro (테헤란로)

Gingko Tree and Yeongsandan Monument (은행나무와 영산단 기념비)

Exit 3

Straight on Yeongdong-daero (영동대로), right on Dogok-ro (도곡로), right on Dogok-ro-87-gil (도곡로87길)

Tags:Gangnam-gu, history, Line 2, monument, museum, park, shopping, temple
Posted in Gangnam-gu, Line 2 | 3 Comments »

Seoul Sub→urban

Posts Tagged ‘museum’

Hwagok Station (화곡역) Line 5 – Station #517

Hangangjin Station (한강진역) Line 6 – Station #631

Jegi-dong Station (제기동역) Line 1 – Station #125

Children’s Grand Park Station (어린이대공원역) Line 7 – Station #726

Samseong Station (삼성역) Line 2 – Station #219

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