It always takes me a while to get my bearings when I arrive at Express Bus Terminal Station, whether I’m there to catch a ride out of town or on my way to somewhere in the neighborhood. Three lines merge here, one bus terminal is two terminals, there’s a department store, two shopping malls, maybe…
Before modernization it wasn’t uncommon to find totem poles marking the entrance to Korean villages, serving as village guardians and frightening away evil spirits. These totems, most often called jangseung (장승), are now mostly found only in folk villages or serving as decorative elements in restaurants, but they once played an important role in Korean…
I’d been hoping for a bit more to be going on around Sangdo, given its relative proximity to Chung-Ang University (중앙대학교), and while it wasn’t an uninteresting neighborhood, it didn’t have any of the collegiate vibrancy that I’d thought it might. Much of the neighborhood, especially the areas outside Exits 2 and 3 was a…
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…
If I were a Seoul politician on the campaign trail, I’d spend as much time as possible being photographed in Junggok, glad-handing the locals, saying folksy things, and showing how much I liked spending time with people just like you. That’s because Junggok is just about the most emphatically average neighborhood you’ll find in this…
Seoul Sub→urban 