(Editor’s Note: Photos by Merissa Quek.) The cover of the Gwangjin-gu (Slogan: A City of elegance, livable Gwangjin) promotional booklet that the kind docent at the Achasan Goguryeo History Musuem handed to me shows an aerial shot of the district, mostly a confetti smattering of densely packed apartment rooftops, broken by the occasional vertical tower. …
‘You looking for a car?’ My girlfriend and I hadn’t walked more than twenty feet from the station when we were approached by a middle-aged man in a puffy coat. Milling about the intersection behind him were a dozen more guys of the same age, all similarly attired in padded winter jackets and hiking caps,…
Coming out of Exit 8, Gunja presented a modest commercial intersection – a couple banks and a Starbucks on the corners, a trio of street stalls selling snacks and sending greasy vapors into the air. Just past those stalls I turned left onto a road bearing the same name as the station, Gunja-ro (군자로). Cutting…
A few steps outside of Exit 1 three guys in suits were standing around a folding table, handing out literature about a new apartment development to passersby. Behind them an old man sat smoking on some steps in a small plaza, in the middle of which was a bronze statue of Shin Ik-hee (신익희). Shin,…
The most important feature in the Cheonho neighborhood is also the one you’d be most likely to walk past without noticing. Just outside of Exit 10 is an earthen mound, about ten feet high, un-mowed and partly covered in a plant with tiny white blossoms. It looks as if it might be a covered landfill…
Seoul Sub→urban 