The Road to Sinchon

신촌 (Sinchon, an area of Seoul near 홍대/HongDae, or the university district) is a pretty cool place. From Yeouido the subway is pretty inconvenient, but there's is a bus that goes there and cabs are a cheap and fast option as well. A few times, though, especially in this warm weather, I couldn't ignore the urge to walk the 45 minutes it takes to get there/home. It's a nice walk: flat, across a bridge (usually some nice breezes blowing by) and you get to see more of the city and its people that way.


Smoggy view; 2 black swans; impenetrable lock; stinky garbage (peeee-yew!)

The pics above are from a recent walk. The first is a lovely view of Seoul's smog. This is easterly; to the west the sky was clean (owing to the west-to-east winds from the West Sea) but it was too bright to take a picture of. Below the bridge, and fairly numerous along the Hangang (Han River) are 백조 (swan) boats. People paddle around in these things, but not too often. (The mascot of Mapo-Gu, where Sinchon-dong is, is a swan; Youngdeungpo-ku, where Yeouido-dong is, has a duck sporting a necktie as its emblem.) In the summer months people even sleep next to the river (well, not right next to it) fishing, eating ramen, drinking soju, talking...typical Korean stuff.

The odd spiral pic is that of a 'lock' on a gate next to a dilapidated apartment building. You can see that not only is it easy to open, but the material is nothing more than thin wire. I have no idea what or who this is supposed to guard against, but I guess someone had a reason for putting it there.

While walking back home I smelled something pretty putrid. I mean really rotten. God-awful, it was. Then I stumbled upon the answer (thankfully not literally), this pile of decomposing trash. Where's a garbage truck when you need one? Actually, I take that back. Once in Daehang-ro a garbage truck passed by and let me tell you the smell emanating from that thing was 100 times worse than a few bags on the street. Worst thing was, it came toward us and it left a lovely stench-ridden trail of liquid behind it...fantastic if you're walking that way. I guess that's why the trash-heaver was running so fast beside the truck--he wanted to stay ahead of the reek.

Anyways, yesterday night my friend Andrea's friend Travis came to Seoul with his Korean bride-to-be, 현정/Hyun Jeong. We went to a Korean tuna restaurant, then to 'my' Outsider (where he tried James Dr. Pepper: 1/2 pint beer, 1/2 pint Coke, 1 shot Amaretto dropped in and downed in 'one shot!') and then it was off to Sinchon for 산낙지 (san-nak-ji, living octopus) and 서피동파 (seo-pi-dong-pa, a mix of western pizza and Korean pajun/omlette) alone with 소주/soju and 동동주/dongdongju (literally comes from the fermentation process where dongdongju settles to the bottom of the vat and is separated from a clear moonshine-like alcohol by a thin layer of rice). Let's just say that we had a pretty good time and Travis did quite well for a guy who doesn't drink too much: not even a hangover the next morning. But then, we got home pretty early, at about midnight; on a weekend we'd likely had been out til 4 or 6 or 8 in the morning.