Dongmyo Station takes its name from the nearby shrine, built to honor the Chinese general and deity Guan Yu (162-219). Near-ubiquitous on the other side of the Yellow Sea, shrines like these are rare in Korea where, despite its long history as an on-again off-again vassal state to China, the strong Confucian tradition prevented worship…
Going a bit off topic here, but it’s for your own good. This coming Sunday, March 31 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Flow in Itaewon the above extravaganza will be taking place, looking at color in a way you’ve never looked at it before. I’m talking seeing it through a prism through a prism…
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…
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…
Seoul Sub→urban 