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Gimpo Airport Station (김포공항역) Line 5 – Station #512, Line 9 – Station #902, AREX – Station #A05

March 18, 2012

Gimpo Airport Station presented a rather expected problem, namely, as an airport, there’s not much walking around you can do, and the local topography is limited mostly to three things: big buildings, big roads, and big parking lots.

Coming out of Exit 4, I was presented with the latter – an enormous spread of asphalt that reminded me of life back in the U.S., where some parking lots could seemingly command their own zip code. Encircling half of the lot here was a line of taxis leading up to the Domestic Terminal (국내선터미널). The drivers waiting their turn would stop their cars and get out and talk with their fellow drivers, and then, after several cabs at the front of the line had picked up passengers and departed, they’d all climb back in their vehicles, start them up, and move them forward about ten meters before turning them off, getting out, and starting the process all over again.

I looped around the parking lot toward the domestic terminal, finding it curious how quiet it was. Gimpo isn’t the busiest airport in the world, but I had expected the occasional roar of an arriving or departing plane, which I wasn’t hearing. This odd quiet held until a nearby traffic light changed from red to green and buses and cars came roaring by on the six-lane road running in front of Domestic. Then the light changed back to red and all was quiet again.

Inside, the first floor of the domestic terminal had the slightly bored, slightly resigned feeling that small airports often do, the knowledge that their trip is a small one and that there are more exciting places to go seeming to infect everyone there. A drama was playing on the TVs in the waiting area, but most travelers were ignoring it, choosing instead to gaze at their smartphones or laptops. Nearby, a trio of young guys slurped up 4,500 won ramen at the snack bar, a criminal price if ever I’ve seen one.

Upstairs to departures. Passengers rolled luggage across the hallway; pretty flight attendants, their hair pulled severely back, quick-stepped to their planes; a Buddhist nun in gray robes checked her luggage; and police with snub-nosed guns slung over their shoulders walked casually by. It was all getting my feet itchy, as airports always do, even if the prospective trip was only to Daegu or Jeju.

Along with the restaurants and convenience stores selling last minute supplies, the departure lounge of the domestic terminal also had an art shop selling paintings, some of them huge, and sculptures, including one of a five-foot high eagle perched on a twisted branch, wings spread out behind him. Of course something like this can be shipped to the purchaser, but it nevertheless seemed an odd thing to pick up at an airport.

Leaving domestic, I walked past the taxi drivers trying to direct me to their cab and through the parking lot, where a worker was pushing a long chain of baggage carriers like shopping carts at a grocery store. A pair of young kids had hopped on a couple of these, using them to get a ride from their parents. There was also a car decorated in pink ribbons and fake plastic flowers, presumably waiting for its owners to return from their honeymoon.

From domestic I went over to Exit 3, which will drop you off just outside the giant tuna can of the new Lotte Complex, which contains the entire range of Lotte branches: department store, hotel, cinema. It was crazy busy inside – a line for coffee at one café ran 20 deep – way more than I would have expected it to be that far out on the edge of the city; but then again, maybe that was the reason: there really isn’t anything similar in that part of town.

The complex was what you’d expect from a Lotte complex so, not really feeling the need to spend much time there and being a bit annoyed with the crowds, I headed back outside. Fortunately for anyone feeling the same compulsion, there’s a park that runs around the back of the complex, though it’s still a work in progress. The sodding has not fully grown in and was, at present, laid across the ground like bathroom tile, small square tufts of brown grass separated by thin lines of dirt. Directly in back of the complex is a skating rink, though this too had not been completed. The rink itself was covered in black plastic sheeting, and the wooden deck surrounding it was uncompleted, hundreds of screws scattered over the wooden planks.

On one side of the rink were some walking paths running between a variety of sculptures in different styles – cartoons, a large blue man and woman holding a white ball, and bronzes of kids playing leapfrog, tiptoeing across a log, and hanging on a fire hydrant. The other side of the rink featured a windmill, a large playground, and two not-yet ponds. One was lined with fake pink and white flamingos, its empty basin revealing the piping for what will be a rather elaborate fountain. The other was done in the style of a traditional Korean garden, complete with overlooking pavilion. The overall effect of this mishmash is of a park designed by committee, as if the people in charge couldn’t make up their minds about anything and just said ‘yes’ to everything.

Finally, I made my way to Gimpo’s International Terminal (국제선터미널), which is closest to Exit 2, but which is reached from the station much more easily by the underground passageway. Once South Korea’s main airport, Gimpo has of course been supplanted by Incheon, and nowadays the international terminal here handles flights only to China and Japan, the departure board listing only Osaka, Haneda, and Hongqiao as destinations on the evening I visited. To me it actually felt quieter than the domestic terminal, perhaps because, while Gimpo is now only a secondary international terminal, its domestic terminal is still the primary one for intra-Korea flights.

In addition to the flights you can also visit the outlet mall and CGV theater connected to the terminal. Given that the majority of arrivals here are coming from China and Japan, much of the shopping is targeted at visitors from those countries, and, accordingly, the Hallyu card is played pretty heavily. Girls’ Generation, T-ARA, Won Bin, and the gang are splashed across large advertisements promoting both products and tourism to the overseas visitors. In the large plaza upstairs, the corner opposite the CGV is dedicated to life-size cutouts of B2ST, G.Na, and 4 Minute, and as I was hanging out I watched a middle-aged Chinese man saunter over with his friend to pose for some stiff and very awkward looking photos with the girls. I suppose, though, that by maintaining a dour expression he can still plausibly claim that the pics are for his kids.

Domestic Terminal (국내선터미널)

Exit 4

Lotte Complex and Park

Exit 3

International Terminal (국제선터미널)

Exit 2 or underground passage

Tags:AREX, Gangseo-gu, Line 5, Line 9, park, shopping, transportation
Posted in AREX, Gangseo-gu, Line 5, Line 9 | 2 Comments »

Chungjeongno Station (충정로역) Line 2 – Station #243, Line 5 – Station #531

March 4, 2012

There are some neighborhoods in Seoul that have their own distinct character or spirit. Then there are neighborhoods like Chungjeongno that don’t feel quite like their own place but rather sponge up elements of the neighborhoods around them. West of the station, you quickly find yourself on the edge of Ahyeon’s large furniture market; to the east are new office and apartment towers that spill over from Seodaemun and downtown’s western edge; southeast you run into the homeless and eccentricities that tends to wash up around Seoul Station; and the lower-class neighborhoods of Aeogae’s northern end extend into Chungjeongno’s southwestern reaches.

That last part of the neighborhood was where I began my visit, leaving Exit 6 and immediately heading up the sloping street in front of me that led directly to the east end of the Ahyeon Furniture Arcade. A shop with large glass windows, selling kids’ furniture, had a picture of a smiling robot painted on its wall, saying, ‘I’m your friend.’ Now, it’s one of my cardinal rules – a rule that, I hasten to add, has kept me alive this long – that a robot that says it is my friend is a robot that is not to be trusted. I suggest you don’t by your kids’ beds there.

As I came to the top of the rise I could see a huge, denuded hill in the distance, a dun-colored expanse whose only features were the trio of stationary earthmovers sitting idly on its slopes. It was the same swath of land being readied for apartments that I’d walked past when visiting Aeogae recently, but it appeared even more stark from far away, as if someone had simply hit reset on the entire neighborhood.

I then turned left on Sohn Kee-chung Gil (손기정길), which eventually leads up to Sohn Kee-Chung Athletic Park (손기정체육공원). Now, we actually visited this park quite recently, via Seoul Station, and I wrote it up for that post, but because Seoul Station is the April 2012 SEOUL magazine column, this post might actually go online first. And because I don’t want to rewrite everything, I’m just going to copy and paste the park info from that post here:

Longtime readers (and those savvy to Korean athletic history) may find Sohn Kee-chung’s 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.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The neighborhood that Sohn Kee-chung Gil cuts through is a lower-class area, and among the brick apartments I passed one wooden shack that looked like it was about to tumble down, and a couple more wood, cement, and tin shacks on a side street. There was clearly no one living in the former, but I wasn’t sure about the latter.

The area is very hilly, and though it’s generally all uphill from the station to the park, the smaller changes of elevation en route were sudden and disorienting, reminding me of a less extreme version of the Escher funhouse that is Chongqing, China. A number of cement stairways and ramps had been built into the neighborhood to deal with the terrain, which sometimes resulted in ghetto renovations like the one I looked down on as I stood on one of those stairways: residents had coiled barbed wire on the tin roof just outside their windows because the elevation had made what would otherwise have been an inaccessible spot a simple dangle and drop from the steps I was standing on.

En route to Sohn Kee-chung Park you might spot a patch of trees down one of the side streets to the left, as I did. There’s an apparently nameless park here, which is a popular place for the area’s oldboys to get some exercise, but if you hike up, the park’s north end offers some superb views in that direction, including part of Inwangsan (인왕산) and model-toy seeming cars streaming down Sinchon-ro (신촌로).

Step out Exit 5 and you get a totally different neighborhood. Suddenly, on Jungnim-gil (중림길), things are gentrified. There are Italian and Japanese restaurants, boutiques, softly lit minimalist salons, and even a craft shop. Literally twenty feet away and you’ve jumped up a couple income brackets just like that.

I followed Jungnim-gil down to where it truncates at Cheongpa-ro (청파로), a couple blocks from Seoul Station, and here, again, things shifted. There were several disheveled storefronts on the main drag, and the pungent smell of fish hung in the air as I passed a shop were a man was feeding dried chilies into a machine that ground them up and spat out flakes into big tubs. Not far away a couple of the area’s homeless had built and were warming their hands over a fire in a big metal bowl on the sidewalk, half of the long wooden plank used for fuel burning away as the other half hung out, resting on the concrete.

Further north on Cheongpa-ro is Seosomun Park (서소문공원), though it’s more easily reached by walking straight from Exit 4. I reached the park that way, where it sits just before a pair of train tracks, and as I approached the boom barriers came down and the red warning lights began flashing as a KTX slowly rolled in toward the station.

As its name implies, the park occupies the site where the city’s minor western gate used to stand, and during the mid-20^th Century it was the site of a fish market.

Near the park’s entrance I noticed a sign that declared it the ‘Seosomoon Martyrdom holy land’ (서소문 순교성지), which led me to think that the park would commemorate killed Korean independence activists. It turned out, however, that the ‘Martyrdom holy land’ part was explicitly religious, as it was here where nearly 40 early Korean Catholics were killed during the 1800s as part of a purge meant to root out Western influence. One of the park’s centerpieces and the first thing you see upon entering is a large memorial sculpture of the Crucifixion. Several smaller stone and metal sculptures dotted the park, and they were just abstract enough that I couldn’t tell whether they had religious meaning or not.

The east side of the park had a second large sculpture, this one a statue of the Goryeo General Yun Gwan, who was a major figure in extending Goryeo domain northwards into Khitan territory in the early 12^th Century. Around the base of the pedestal three homeless men napped on spreads of newspaper.

Back at the station, I went out Exit 7, which again put me practically right in front of the Ahyeon Furniture Arcade, but instead of exploring that again I took the immediate right onto Kyonggi-daero (경기대로), a very nice, tree-lined street that ran through a relaxed neighborhood. The street is named after the nearby university, and features the cafes and cheap restaurants you’d expect to find.

If you’re heading directly for the uni, though, it’s quickest to go out Exit 8 and swing left on Chungjeong-9-gil (충정로9길). If you see the giant silver building like a 1950s b-movie UFO, you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Just past that is Kyonggi University (경기대학교), its wall outside of campus lined with framed copies of old paintings of tigers. I stepped around some construction work going on and went up the stairs to the university’s front plaza, past an ivy-covered rock wall.

The plaza didn’t seem to go anywhere. A pair of buildings hemmed it in, and the only option for movement that I had was a narrow road leading off to the left that I walked down for about five minutes before finding myself off campus. Simply put, there’s just not much to Kyonggi-dae – a few unremarkable buildings jammed together on a hilltop, some satellite buildings elsewhere in the neighborhood, and significantly little common space. The campus map showed a small but pleasant-looking park at the campus’ rear, but it seemed that the only access to it was through one of the buildings, and I didn’t care to walk in and try to find my way back as the school was more or less shut down for winter break. It seemed like it would be a downer of a place to go to school, more like an office complex than a university, but a sign out front displayed some fairly ambitious campus redesign plans so it’ll be interesting to see if things change once redevelopment is completed.

Ahyeon Furniture Arcade

Exit 6 or 7

Sohn Kee-Chung Athletic Park (손기정체육공원)

Exit 6

Left on Sohn Kee-chung Gil (손기정길)

Seosomun Park (서소문공원)

Exit 4

Straight on Seosomun-ro (서소문로)

Kyonggi University (경기대학교)

Exit 8

Left on Chungjeong-9-gil (충정로9길)

Tags:furniture, Jung-gu, Line 2, Line 5, monument, park, school, Seodaemun-gu
Posted in Jung-gu, Line 2, Line 5, Seodaemun-gu | 3 Comments »

Sindap Station (신답역) Line 2 – Station #211-2

February 26, 2012

Given that my visit to Sindap coincided with Seollal, coming out of the station’s one exit reminded me a bit of the scene in Westerns when the protagonist steps out of the saloon onto an empty street, the only things a’stirrin’ bein’ tumbleweeds an’ dust. And, OK, my imagination is getting away with me and I exaggerate, but it was awfully quiet. There was a normal-seeming flow of traffic – likely families on the way to and from relatives’ homes and gravesites – but the pedestrian traffic was thin to the point of almost not being there at all. There was one guy doing some stretching in Yongdap Neighborhood Park (용답 근린 공원), the small space just outside Exit 1. More of a plaza than a park, really, it did have a packed dirt basketball court, some exercise equipment, and a few benches.

Sindap sits on one corner of a large intersection where Cheonho-daero (천호대로) and Majang-ro (마장로)/Sagajeong-ro (사가정로) intersect, and a cold January wind was whipping across the open space, past the low, 3-4-story older brick commercial buildings in brown, carnation, and burnt sienna.

Behind the station is the Cheonggye Stream (청계천) and my aim was to get at it, but the tracks seemed to cut off access so I turned left out of the exit to see if I could find a way to it. I walked northwest several hundred meters, on the way making note of the bright cream, orange, yellow, and red Seoul Sindap Elementary School (서울신답초등학교), which had three large solar panels perched on the roof.

Finally, just after the rail overpass where Line 1 trains rumbled north towards Cheongnyangni, I noticed a set of wood stairs, and these led up to a path down to the stream. Here, near where the stream starts its southward turn towards the Han, the waterway has almost none of the engineered character that typifies its more popular western end. It’s much wider, maybe four times what it is in Jongno, and lined on either side with thick beds of reeds, brown and crisp in the winter, that in some stretches were as tall as I was, blocking completely my view of the stream. The only thing in the stream that indicated an artificial touch were the stepping stone bridges leading from one bank to another, though it appeared as if, temporarily at least, the freezing over of the stream in spots had rendered them superfluous. This wasn’t a theory I was ready to put to the test, however.

As I got back near the station I came to see that I had taken the long way round by turning left out of the station instead of right. If I had done that and then followed it by another right onto Majang-ro at the intersection I would have noticed the path leading down to the stream just behind the car park.

The rest of the neighborhood seemed rather unremarkable, though pleasant enough. East of the station an (on this day at least) extremely quiet neighborhood sat squeezed between Cheonho-daero and the tall metal walls shielding it from the train tracks running parallel to the Cheonggye.

The story was similar north of Cheonho-daero, though here at least there were some people grabbing some holiday exercise at the square block Gandeme Park (간데메공원). No one was using the badminton or basketball courts, but a few singles and couples were circumambulating the walking path or using the exercise equipment. The park seemed relatively new, with good playground equipment, and a couple features that would make it nicer in the warmer months: a rose arch, that for now was denuded, and an octagonal pavilion above a pond, which had been drained for the winter.

Lastly, if you head to the corner of the intersection diagonal from the station, you can pretty quickly reach the west end of Dapsimni Antiques Town, which sits just one block back from Cheonho-daero. Of course everything was shuttered up due to the Lunar New Year holiday, but you can get an idea of what the Antiques Town is all about by checking out the post from our visit to Dapsimni Station.

Yongdap Neighborhood Park (용답 근린 공원)

Exit 1

Cheonggye Stream (청계천)

Exit 1

Right out of exit, right on Majang-ro (마장로), Right on path after car park

Gandeme Park (간데메공원)

Exit 1

Northeast on Sagajeong-ro (사가정로), Left on Hwangmul-ro (황물로), Right on Dapsimni-ro-38-gil (답십리로38길)

Dapsimni Antiques Town

Exit 1

East on Cheonho-daero (천호대로), first or second Left

Tags:Dongdaemun-gu, Line 2, market, park, Seongdong-gu, shopping
Posted in Dongdaemun-gu, Line 2, Seongdong-gu | Leave a Comment »

Yongmasan Station (용마산역) Line 7 – Station #723

February 12, 2012

I arrived at Yongmasan Station, named for the nearby mountain, on a bright, crisp January day, and coming out of Exit 2 the first thing I noticed was how hilly the neighborhood was. Apartment towers to the east sat up on bluffs, and the street just in front of the exit dipped down into a culvert before running back up again so that one second I was ten feet below Yongmasan-ro (용마산로) and the next a good ten feet above it looking out over apartment roofs to more towers and mountains in the distance to the west.

Turning right on Yongmasan-ro-45-gil (용마산로45길) I got my first clear glimpse of the mountain, its imposing face of craggy rock and brown winter scrub appearing up ahead in the gap between the buildings on either side of the road. What looked a bit like moss was a green net that had been bolted over the mountain’s face to protect against falling rocks.

Walking towards the mountain brings one to the Yongmasan Waterfall Park (용마산폭포공원), which centers on a trio of artificial waterfalls. There’s also a playground, some tennis and badminton courts, a pair of tent restaurants, and a soccer pitch with the most gorgeous setting of any public pitch I’ve seen in Korea. Abutting the mountain, the pitch is enclosed by bluffs on two sides that rise up just feet from the pitch’s fenced enclosure.

The waterfalls are located towards the rear of the park, tumbling into a small, tarp-lined pool that’s fronted by a plaza with a walking track and some benches where a lone ajeosshi was taking a load off. The central cascade, Yongma Waterfall (용마폭포), is the tallest at 51.4 meters, and is flanked by two smaller ones, each at about 21 meters: Cheongyong (청용) (Blue Dragon) to the left and Baekma (백마) (White Horse) to the right. The flow had apparently been cut off for the winter, and without water the three falls were left just as curiously different colored rock, their shapes further delineated by the protective green netting running right up to their edge. Despite the lack of water and the fakeness, facing the waterfalls is still rather impressive, with the rim of the half-moon basin rising up high above you, lines of small pines perched around the lip. For another view, there’s a small viewing platform located above Baekma Waterfall.

Near the waterfalls you’ll find access to hiking trails that wind up Yongmasan and link to nearby Achasan (아차산) and Mangusan (망우산), passing several tombs and mountain springs.

Another option for outdoor recreation in the Yongmasan area is to head to the Jungnang Stream (중랑천). Go out Exit 1 and turn right onto Myeongmok-ro-27-gil (면목로27길), following it west all the way to its end. There’s a walking track running between the apartments and the Dongbu Expressway (동부간선도로), and if you follow it south you’ll come to a pedestrian bridge that you can use to access the park. In all honesty, however, the park along the stream isn’t very good, pretty poor when compared to other urban streams in the capital. There’s a bike and walking path, and a few badminton and basketball courts, but that’s about all for facilities. Even benches or any other rest stop are in short supply. On top of that, the stream itself isn’t particularly pretty, and you’re constantly exposed to the thrum of traffic on the adjacent highway.

You could also get to the stream by going south from Exit 3 and turning right on Dapsimni-ro (답십리로), which will lead directly to the bridge. I went back to the station this way, and it brought me past one of the bigger groupings of hostess bars that I’ve come across in Seoul. There were probably a couple dozen in total on Dapsimni-ro and Myeonmok-ro (면목로), and in general they looked a bit classier than hostess bars I’ve seen elsewhere, which is a very relative comparison to make, I know. Almost every single one of them had signage in some shade of red or pink, and several had drawings of women in poses so old-fashioned that they were almost endearing, clutching a rose between their teeth for example.

West of the station, the area between Nongdeung-ro (농등로) and Myeonmok-ro is a quiet, very normal neighborhood with a few kids out playing in the street and women pulling wheeled carts on the way to or from the store. Things get busier around Myeonmok-ro, which is the commercial vein running through the area, lined with restaurants and cell phone stores playing K-pop. Busses shuttle up and down the road and groups of high school kids on their day off were walking around, hanging out and killing time.

Just a half-block west, Myeonmok Market (면목시장) runs parallel to the street of the same name. This covered market is signposted by a pair of white, blue, and green arches marking the entrances on Myeonmok-ro-33-gil (면목로33길) and Myeonmok-ro-35-gil (면목로35길).

The market was clean and airy, busy but not crowded. I paused for a bit to watch the proprietor of one stall feed sheets of dried seaweed into a machine that ran them through a conveyer belt, toasting them and giving them a thin shower of salt as they exited. The machine spat them out into a cardboard box where the man’s daughter would gather them and slip them into plastic sleeves to be sold.

As I was doing this, a bright red blur snuck into the corner of my eye, and I looked up to see a guy dressed as a clown walking past, a bag of balloons tied to his waist. He wore a baggy red jumpsuit with white polka dots, a fuzzy red wig, and white face paint. I watched him walk away down the aisle, no one else, not even the kids, paying much attention to him.

The market had the usual assortment of vegetables, meats, snacks, and clothing on offer, and one stall had two huge bowls of marigold hobak juk (호박죽) (pumpkin porridge) and burgundy pat juk (팥죽) (red bean porridge) on heaters, ready to be served up to anyone looking for something to warm them up. A kitchen supply store at one end was playing the Guns ‘n’ Roses version of ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ while nearby a stall selling seasoned raw skate (홍어) had set up a speaker system, and one of the women working there was delivering her sales pitch into a microphone while the other two scooped up orders into plastic bags, doing a brisk business.

I crossed paths with the clown a couple more times before I left, and each time I did I noticed the hopeful look on his face as he waited for someone to take interest in him, but I never saw anyone actually do so. Times are tough all over.

Yongmasan Waterfall Park (용마산폭포공원)

Exit 2

Right on Yongmasan-ro-45-gil (용마산로45길)

Jungnang Stream (중랑천)

Exit 1

Left out of exit on Myeongmok-ro-27-gil (면목로27길)

Myeonmok Market (면목시장)

Exit 1

Left out of exit on Myeongmok-ro-27-gil (면목로27길), R on Myeonmok-ro (면목로) (first set of lights), L on Myeonmok-ro-33-gil (면목로33길) or Myeonmok-ro-35-gil (면목로35길)

Tags:Jungnang-gu, Line 7, market, park
Posted in Jungnang-gu, Line 7 | 1 Comment »

Sangsu Station (상수역) Line 6 – Station #623

February 5, 2012

And after five years? What then?

The minute someone sits down at a keyboard, sets an f-stop, or turns over a fresh page in a sketchpad and tries to describe a place, it’s already a little bit gone. Unavoidable and just fine really. It clears the way for new records, allows for comparisons (maybe even lessons or conclusions), and staves off obsolescence for at least a few magazines and papers and describers a bit longer. But when a place changes as fast as Seoul does, it can sometimes feel like a new version is needed before the old one is even finished.

Part of me knew that would be the fate of this project before we even started it – that if we ever reached the end, what came at the beginning would likely need a whole new description. I try to reconcile myself with this by keeping in mind that posts at least serve as a snapshot of a neighborhood at a particular moment, even if their expiration date arrives the day they show up. We’ve been back to neighborhoods we’d visited earlier, only to find that a business or a building we mentioned before is gone, and that’s just the way it is with Seoul, some neighborhoods even more than others.

Sangsu for one.

I live just outside of the Hongik University neighborhood and go there at least once every couple of weeks, and quite literally every time I do I notice something that’s changed. Sangsu, which serves the southeast side of the neighborhood, is no different. It may even be changing more quickly than central Hongdae, as the combination of the influence of the school’s vibrant graduates and the rush to capitalize on the cachet the neighborhood has with the city’s young creative class continues to push the boundaries of what can be considered ‘Hongdae’ outward (see Hapjeong).

The area south of the station and Dokmak-gil (독막길) gives an interesting, but subtle picture of what’s taking shape here. When you step out Exit 4 and walk down the main drag and through the backstreets, things look at first exactly as they do in dozens and dozens of other mostly residential areas of Seoul: quietish one-and-a-half-lane roads surrounded by middle class red brick apartment buildings. But then you start to notice little things that betray the influence of the art school just a few blocks away: hip bike shops, vintage boutiques, small galleries, small cafes, small galleries cum cafes.

One of these had an unobtrusive folding sign on the alley outside that almost read like a haiku:

빵빵금지

아름다운

골목길을

만들어요

(Don’t honk

Making

A Beautiful

Alley)

But in a cheeky and very Hongdae touch the little lyric was accompanied by a picture of two stick figures: one on its knees, the other looming over its head, arm raised and baton cocked. They really mean it.

As I walked east down the main drag, past restaurants getting ready for dinnertime business, there was one image that seemed to sum up this side of the neighborhood for me: on the outdoor patio of a café that doubled as a crafts workshop uni kids were sipping lattes and knitting, while just next door a pair of ajummas stood chatting outside a store selling bags of bar snacks the size of toddlers.

If the changes taking place near Exit 4 are subtle, those in the area adjacent to Exit 3 are anything but. Between Dokmak-gil and the river the neighborhood is undergoing a facelift, and looks set for a considerable amount of redevelopment. Walking around, the green, black, and pink striped blankets often put up around construction sites were a common sight, and quite a few small businesses had closed up. Many of these businesses, and many houses as well, had red spray paint slashed across their windows and sides reading 철거 or 철거예장 (demolition or will be demolished). Squeezed between Hongdae and the new developments along the river, these buildings’ days have likely been numbered for quite some time.

If you head south down Wausan-gil after leaving Exit 3 and follow the signs as they point you east on Tojeong-ro (토정로) and then towards a small side street on your right you’ll spot a blue tunnel leading to the Hangang Park (한강공원). The stretch of park here is much more modest than at other parts of the river, not much more than a strip of grass running alongside a bike path and bunches of tan reeds with ash-colored tops that gently swayed in the breeze blowing off the river. In addition, you’re confronted with the Gangbyeonbuk-ro Expressway (강변북로) rising up out of the water and hogging the bulk of the view just in front of you, which kept giving me flashbacks of ‘The Host’ (괴물).

Despite these drawbacks the park was a popular place on the day I visited, the bike path in particular full of Seoulites out for a ride. And if you don’t mind having to gaze through the gaps between giant concrete pillars, the view across the river is an especially nice one, taking in a view of Parliament and the skyscrapers of Yeouido, as well as Bahm Island (밤섬).

The park here also features something that’s a bit of a novelty, something that I haven’t seen anywhere else in Seoul, or Korea for that matter. Walk west from the entrance, and just before you get to the imposing industrial set-up of a water treatment plant you’ll come upon a pair of croquet courts. Huddled under a bridge to protect them from the elements, their flat packed-dirt surfaces were broken up only by the metal hoops on each. One of the courts sat empty, but the other was being used by a half-dozen 50-somethings having a bit of a knockabout.

While the area south of the station drops hints, the area north of it is distinctly part of what’s considered Hongdae. Although the neighborhood near Exit 2 was surprisingly quieter and more residential than I had expected (once I got off Wausan-ro at least), the power line poles on Wausan-ro decorated in Super Mario motifs and tiger stripes left no mistaking what part of town I was in.

One of the neighborhood’s most eye-catching features is the abundance of wall murals and colorful street paintings that pop up just about everywhere you go. There’s of course what’s known as ‘Mural Alley,’ running just south of the university’s main gate, but sections of this have recently been torn down to facilitate development, and I never found the paintings here to be among the area’s best anyway. To check it out, go straight on Wausan-ro towards the university and turn right on the 2^nd Wausan-ro-18-gil (와우산로18길) (just before Codes Combine). You’ll see the Simpson family on the left and then one cow standing on another’s back, busy whitewashing a nighttime cityscape. Take a left at the next little alley, go past some murals, and then hook around to your right.

The best wall murals are to be found elsewhere, though. To name just a small sampling of what I saw, scattered throughout the neighborhood are colorful flowers, grinning cats with angel wings, wolves in top hats, dragons and ogres on acid trips, 30-eyed swamp things swinging by on jungle vines, and a mutant ajumma, permed and lipsticked, but also fanged, warted, and bloodied.

This neighborhood of serendipity reaches its peak outside of Exit 1, where an afternoon’s exploration could very likely turn up your new favorite café, restaurant, shop, or all three.

I began by heading straight west on Dokmak-gil, past African, selling, of course, African art and knickknacks; Bella Tortilla, where the long-haired proprietor served up burritos; and Standing Coffee II, the second iteration of the popular Noksapyeong café. This eventually brought me to the south end of Parking Street, which any Saturday night Hongdae reveler is familiar with and which must have one of the world’s highest discrepancies between the coolness of a street and the coolness of its name.

The best way to conduct oneself in this neighborhood – the only way really, since there’s a pretty high likelihood that what’s there today won’t be there six months from now – is to simply wander about, let your ears absorb the ambient music, abandon any notion of trying to find something, and just let the neighborhood come to you.

You might stumble across a place like 차 끓이는 솥 (Boiling Tea Kettle), just a block down Wausan-ro-11-gil (와우산로11길), where hundreds of tea cups, saucers, and pots sit on shelves in the shop’s window. Some are simple, plain ceramic, while others are made of china and have intricate designs of roosters or dragons. Shelves inside are filled with string-wrapped paper satchels of tea, and their aroma completely envelops the shop in a scent that soothes and drags up exotic Orientalistic fantasies that I thought I’d been too seasoned to have any more.

You might also come upon Publique, just around the corner from 차 끓이는 솥, an artisanal boulangerie and patisserie where delicious-looking loaves of dark bread dusted in flour sit in the window, alongside certificates from baking schools in France, evidence that the baked goods here are the real deal. Though it hasn’t been around long, only since April, it seems to have already become a popular spot, as both the tables inside and on its outdoor patio were filled with people snacking on croissants and sipping coffee when I discovered it.

Speaking of coffee, perhaps nowhere has Korea’s newfound coffee-mania hit harder, or resulted in more superb independent cafes, than around Hongdae and Sangsu. Seemingly every other place in the neighborhood is a little café tempting you to come in from the cold and cozy up with a book and a latte for a while.

If the wandering has worked up an appetite, there are literally hundreds of places to eat around Sangsu, ranging from hole-in-the-wall dirty spoons to multi-story restaurants, from down-home Korean comfort food to Vietnamese, Mexican, or Nepali.

I had earlier been walking down a tiny side street east of Wausan-gil when I came across a small place with a sign in Japanese and a sticker in the window declaring it Zagat rated. It was only 5:15, but there was already a line of ten people out the door. I had no idea what the place was, or even what kind of food was served there, but that mystery, and that line, meant I had to try it.

The place is Hakatabunko (하카타분코) and they serve up Japanese ramen, along with a couple other dishes. There are two types of ramen served at Hakatabunko, one in a pork-based broth that’s rich and full, the other a milder and lighter pork and chicken mix. Both varieties are incredibly savory, the noodles cooked to the perfect firmness.

There are about four tables in Hakatabunko, but if you can you’ll want to grab a seat at the bar along with the dozens of small toy figurines – Keroro, Sailor Moon, the Catbus from ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ – that sit on a ledge above it. This is so you can watch the action taking place in the open kitchen right in front of you. With a rolled-up bandanna tied around his head and sleeves pushed up sinewy arms, the chef boiled noodles, poured broth, and garnished dishes in a practiced and seemingly reflexive series of motions, all the while barking out welcomes and dish announcements in a loud Japanese rasp.

So what now? We visited and created this post in November, but in a neighborhood as quicksilver as Sangsu, there’s every possibility that it’s now obsolete. Well…so be it. That’s what makes Seoul, Seoul, and what makes living here so endlessly interesting. You try to know the city, but she’ll never really let you. The best you can hope to do is to keep coming back, keep reacquainting yourself, and remember that there are, in fact, some things about her that don’t change: the slow march of the Han, the sly glee of kids with paint, the midwinter perfection of steam pouring off a hot bowl of noodles in a cozy izakaya.

Hangang Park (한강공원)

Exit 3

South on Wausan-gil (와우산길), east on Tojeong-ro (토정로), follow sign pointing to entry tunnel up ahead on the right

차 끓이는 솥 (Boiling Tea Kettle)

Exit 1

North on Wausan-gil (와우산길), left on Wausan-ro-11-gil (와우산로11길)

02) 325-1542

daniel75sj@hanmail.net

Publique

Exit 1

North on Wausan-gil (와우산길), left on Wausan-ro-11-gil (와우산로11길), left after차 끓이는 솥 (Boiling Tea Kettle)

02) 333-6919

blog.naver.com/inbp83

Hakatabunko (하카타분코)

Exit 2

North on Wausan-gil (와우산길), right on Dongmak-ro-19-gil (동막로19길), just after the mutant ajumma

02) 332-7900

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

Tags:art, Line 6, Mapo-gu, nightlife, park, restaurant, shopping
Posted in Line 6, Mapo-gu | 1 Comment »

Seoul Sub→urban

Posts Tagged ‘park’

Gimpo Airport Station (김포공항역) Line 5 – Station #512, Line 9 – Station #902, AREX – Station #A05

Chungjeongno Station (충정로역) Line 2 – Station #243, Line 5 – Station #531

Sindap Station (신답역) Line 2 – Station #211-2

Yongmasan Station (용마산역) Line 7 – Station #723

Sangsu Station (상수역) Line 6 – Station #623

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