Hidden among the soaring glass and steel towers of southeastern Seoul is a wormhole, a portal to a land that physically exists within the Songpa-gu dimensions of time and space but which could seemingly secede and declare a sovereign one block corporation-state at will. Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the People’s Republic of Lotte. You don’t…
One of the newest stations in the Seoul metro system, National Police Hospital Station was built right next to, you guessed it, the National Police Hospital (국립경찰병원), a hulking off-white brick building looking out over the intersection near Exit 1. A sign near its driveway says ‘ONE-STOP 지원센터 (support center)’ which makes it sound more…
Gaerong Station sits at the southeast corner of the large Ogeum Park (오금공원) that we visited when we went to, er, Ogeum Station, so you can get the skinny on the park at that post. The one difference that I’ll point out is that the part of the park across the street from Exit 1…
Having made the trek allllll the way across Seoul to go to Bangi Station, I wasn’t about to make the two-hour round-trip commute without getting my money’s worth, so a visit to next door Ogeum Station was in order. And like Bangi, the most salient feature of the Ogeum neighborhood is the amount of greenery…
What’s most striking about the area around Bangi Station is how green it is, at least by Seoul standards. Nearly every street in the neighborhood is tree-lined, numerous walls are covered with ivy, and despite the presence of some very large roads there’s far less of the concrete jungle feeling you get in other parts…
Seoul Sub→urban 