In the hood

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Trip Start Oct 23, 2006 Previous
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  Seoul, Korea Rep.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Just a quick aside before my actual entry this week. I have never experienced what meterologists have termed a 'cold snap' before. Winter has always seemed to sneak up on me and before I had realised what had happenned, I'm reaching for the extra thick scarf. Until now that is. I went out for lunch on Sunday with a light zip as my cover against the autumn winds and no trouble. One night and a killer storm later, and its f#$%king snowing! Not alot of snow I admit, but snow! Its seriously cold here now. Winter is gonna be a killer.

But now to more important matters.

Like alot of people, I sometimes crave deep fried pork cutlet at 2:00am on a Wednesday night. And like some people, I also think that this is also a good time to buy that new suit Ive had my eye on. The good news is, I can be tucking into the food in my new threads after a quick 2 minute walk - this, unfortunately, is also the bad news.

My formal address is a small apartment in Bongchon-Dong (suburb), an area of Gwanak-Gu (shire), South West Seoul. I live in close proximity to Seoul University, one of the largest in the city, meaning that the neighbourhood is pretty much alive 24/7 - students live much different hours than most people. Restaurants, bars, cafes, DVD rooms (kids go on dates there - you pretty much hire a lounge room and watch dvds in privacy), department (like the big yellow called Egg Yellow - wicked), 'Ma and Pa' stores, gymnasiums, street stalls, 7/11s, markets, you name it, its within 500m of my place.

The nieughbourhood itself is quite old once you get off the main thoroughfares. Footpaths disappear, leaving cars, scooters and pedestrians jostling for, somewhat limited, road space. The age of the hood also means that the sewerage is 'open', in that the faint smell of good 'ol number 2 can be had from time to time via the sewerage grates. Not a huge deal, but noticeable. The pics I have included this week show nicely the comparison between the old foreground and the newer background.

One of my favourite parts of the hood, that I have discovered thus far, is the mini 'Chinatown'. A few chinese restaurants and store selling chinese goods, together with all their signage written in mandarin, give the hood added smells (pork buns),sights (its pretty cool watching an 80 year old woman cutting and gutting fish with machine-like prescision) and sounds (two men having a screaming match from opposite sides of the street about who-knows what whilst people walk between them as if nothing is happenning). Priceless.

So thats alittle peak into my hood. As big as Seoul is, I could live happily in my little area of town without the need to leave, there is that much here so close to my home. It's indeed all at my fingertips. But I won't.

New segment time. Most people dont have time for pointless facts. Me, I love em. I really cant get enough. So, to that end, Im going to begin a segment I call "Dude, thats truly a pointless Korean fact". Each and every entry I will seek to enlighten with a new fact about this little known country. Lets start in style with one from Naum Chomsky. He once said - "It would take 15 minutes for Nth Korea to destroy Seoul if pointed all its weaponry at it from the DMZ, such is Seouls proximity to the north. 15 minutes. The time taken for the US forces supposedly protecting the region, to mobilise, is 12 minutes." Crazy stuff.

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Chinatown 1	Chinatown 2	delivery bike 2	delivery bikes
hood 1	hood 2	hood 3	hood 4
hood 5	hood 6	hood 7	kimchi for sale
mandarins for sale

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