After passing through Ichon Station, Line 4 turns north and for several kilometers runs exactly parallel to Line 1 – the two lines no more than a block apart along some stretches – before peeling away and turning east around Namdaemun Market. This little quirk of infrastructure puts Sinyongsan Station right on the doorstep of…
A man returns to the place an old lover left him, his tears mixing with the rain, but finds nothing more than the memories he came with. Ain’t that just it how it goes. That fateful place was Samgakji, and the sad story was sung by Bae Ho (배호) in ‘돌아가는 삼각지,’ one of Korea’s…
I’m writing this at Hakrim Dabang (학림다방), on the second floor of a building whose windows look out over Daehang-no (대학로). As this project has progressed I’ve shied away more and more from talking about restaurants, cafes, bars, or any other kind of business because with the Darwinian rate of turnover among businesses in Seoul…
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…
This is a very bittersweet post for us here at Seoul Sub→urban. On the one hand, we’ve reached something of a milestone: Namtaeryeong marks the 100th station that we’ve visited for the project. When we began we had no idea where it would go or how long it would last, and the idea of covering…
Seoul Sub→urban 