The word saetgang (샛강) is one of those uber-specific words, like schadenfreude or 木漏れ日 (komorebi) (the Japanese term for the dappling effect of sunlight filtering through trees), that makes you feel your own language is missing out. It refers to a small channel or tributary in a river that separates an island from the…
I like Yeongdeungpo-gu. It doesn’t have much charm, but it has more interesting and idiosyncratic spots than most people realize, or at least remember: the machine shops and art scene in Mullae, the Chinese neighborhood in Daerim, the parks and behemoth Yoido Full Gospel Church on Yeouido, Seonyudo’s industrial island oasis. It’s also the (mostly)…
The star attraction at Seonyudo Station is the eponymous island, and to get to there I stepped out Exit 2, whereupon I was greeted by a rush of cicada song. It was hot, but the humidity had broken, there was a breeze, and Yangpyeong-ro-22-gil (양평로22길) was a pleasant street, with a number of inviting cafes…
The prevailing ethos of Yeouido is that size matters. There may not be a single one-story building on the entire island, and crossing some of the intersections have to qualify you for some sort of mileage rewards, but nowhere is this lopsided sense of scale more pronounced than on the island’s northwest tip, which is…
Change is a constant theme on this blog, one that’s unavoidable when you talk about Seoul, but there are few places in the city that have undergone it quite so dramatically as Yeouido. In the Joseon era, this island, whose name literally translates to ‘Useless,’ served as a sheep and goat pasture, and that’s pretty…
