Before getting to the post, we’d like to extend an enormous ‘thank you’ to Jiaying Lim, who was a huge help giving us tips for the neighborhood around Hansungdae. (She even hand-drew us a map!) We strongly suggest you check out her blog at xoxoseoul.wordpress.com, where she posts English translations of Korean pop culture articles,…
It begins the moment you step off the subway. There, on the platform, a man calls out to passengers, hawking the belts laid out in compartmentalized boxes at his feet. Before you exit the station you’ll pass more people doing the same – with bags, with clothes, with battery-operated toys that flash and clatter –…
An anomaly in the Seoul subway system, the Line 4 station and Line 7 station in this neighborhood that marks the dividing line between Dongjak-gu and Seocho-gu actually bear different names, despite being a transfer point. The Line 4 station is called Chongshin University, while the connecting Line 7 station is Isu. I’m not privy…
Much like with what passes for Seoul’s Chinatown, you could be forgiven for drifting through the city’s ‘Little Tokyo’ without ever knowing you were there. Tucked between the station and the river, Ichon-dong (이촌동) doesn’t look distinctly different from any other middle-class neighborhood in Seoul, the sole thing giving you a hint of the presence…
Only a couple stops down the line from my local, Chang-dong Station sits just west of Jungnang Stream (중랑천) on the eastern edge of Dobong-gu. The Sunday we went there was bitingly cold, one of the first days signaling that the new winter was here. Surrounding Exit 1 were a cluster of five or six…
Seoul Sub→urban 