March 2006: Eastern Seoul

This afternoon was hazy, the sun a dull red and shadows indistinct. I took a trip over to far east Seoul to check out a new cram school that my old boss set up. I was under the impression that it was reasonably close, but after calling the school and getting directions I realized that I'd been completely wrong on that count.

I'd only been out in that part of the city once before, for a friend's housewarming party the summer before last. It struck me then as so dissimilar to the rest of Seoul that it may as well have been the moon. That summer was a humid night which clung to my shirt and dripped down the small of my back. Walking to his new place, the broad avenues with practically no traffic opened the air to night sounds and the smell of trees. The housewarming, in an apartment complex ten minutes from the subway station was eerie because it was so quiet; seemed so clean. I'd planned to buy a gift once I got off the subway, but there weren't any shops in the direction I was going. Just trees lining the sidewalk. The last of the dusk gathered and fell behind me, and it was dark. That entire experience was pretty weird: Bugs, clean air, broad streets and darkness.

Stepping out at street level from Bonghwasan station, it was the same thing all over again. While I waited for the bus only a few cars drove past. A block of storefronts next to the subway exit only held half a dozen, large shops. A convenience store, an internet cafe, a Japanese restaurant that had a veranda, with a carry-out counter set up. A young woman poured some cold noodles into a styrofoam cup for two high schoolers walking home.

On the bus, I passed some sort of orchard. Behind the Sinnae apartments were rolling hills, a church steeple barely visible through the bare forest on the slopes. A couple of old people got on. We were the only ones.

Closer to the school, the city closed in around the street. Tall office buildings, all new, served a variety of different businesses: life insurance, real estate, corporate headquarters and other things that I couldn't understand. Out at the Jung Nang Gu District Office, I walked back, past a middle school that was just letting out towards the main intersection.

There are other parts of Seoul that have this same, planned and zoned layout to them, as well. South of the river, in Gangnam gu, the streets and sidewalks are also wide. The traffic patterns are well regulated and the residential areas separate from the busier foot-trafficked areas. However, there are a lot of people who live there, and a lot of people who go there for work, shopping and entertainment. It's crowded and despite the planning that went into that area, there's a constant crush of cars and people that greatly mitigates the overall idea behind "planning." The carry-out food tents, small sidewalk shops that fix shoes or duplicate keys, and the convenience storefronts that spill out onto the sidewalks in the summer months with patio furniture for patrons collude to run interference on the city planners designs.

Out here, though, there's no one. Well, there are, but they're just not around in the numbers that exist in other parts of the city. I could count on two hands the number of people I saw walking to the new school. And most of them were sidewalk vendors or kids just out from school. It took an hour to get there: Nearby indeed.

In between classes the kiddos ran amok and I met some of the teachers I didn't already know. Afterwards, in the early evening, I took the subway back home and missed the sun setting. Out in the street, next to my apartment, back in the unplanned chaos; what I tend to associate with Seoul, there were no night bugs, plenty of neon signs and it smelled like exhaust fumes. Home again home again...