Sitting at the foot of Namsan, Dongguk University Station is of course the jumping off point for Dongguk University (동국대학교), one of Korea’s most prestigious Buddhist-affiliated universities. Just after riding the escalator up to Exit 6 you’ll spot a second escalator that leads up to the school. It drops you off on a small plaza…
It should be obvious that in a city the size of Seoul there will always be a place that catches you unawares, that opens like a fold of paper in Exquisite Corpse, revealing something at once recognizable and yet utterly, sometimes bewilderingly unexpected. It should be obvious, what with the enormity of Seoul’s population and…
Inside Chungmuro Station, near the top of the main set of escalators, is a pair of walls covered in old photographs. The color photos of well-dressed people accepting awards may have faded and aged even more poorly than the black and white film stills around the corner, but this little shrine is the first sign…
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 –…
Despite sitting near the heart of downtown, the area around Euljiro-4-ga Station remains off the radar for most. Surrounded by Jongno, Myeongdong, and Dongdaemun, it suffers a bit from Bermuda Triangle syndrome, disappearing amid the attractions of its more well-known neighbors. But there are plenty of reasons to get off the subway here and explore,…
