Dongjak’s best real estate sits on a large hill below the city’s southernmost bend in the Han River, giving it unobstructed views of the slowly moving waters and the northern half of the city spread out beyond them. It’s home to some 165,000 residents, all of them prominent though few famous, the identities of some…
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…
For several kilometers on the south side of the river, Line 2 jumps aboveground and traces the district borders between Yeongdeungpo-, Guro-, Dongjak-, and Gwanak-gus, before burrowing back down and continuing to the tonier eastern districts. While it’s in view, the line runs through Sindaebang Station, perched on its platform above the Dorim Stream (도림천). …
The Noryangjin area of Seoul, which nestles against the eastern end of Yeouido, is known above all else for its enormous fish market, one of the country’s largest. And we will certainly get to that, but first we’re going to go on a brief tour of the surprisingly nice neighborhood around the market. ‘Around the…
Seoul Sub→urban 