Streets and People

 

So Korea is a 600 year old city. We are staying in the old district, out in Yeouido where people are right and the city was planned things are different, but here pedestrians rule the streets.

In Insedong the main tourist street next to Hostel there is a small sidewalk with no curb, but some granite blocks to prevent people from cars from leaving the street. In the meantime people easily flow from sidewalk to street without even thinking about it. There are no crosswalks, and cars move at a snails pace. Even more impressive is Dongdemoon where vendors literally take over a 4 lane arterial to sell their goods. The picture your looking at is those vendors on the street. You can see cars trying to get through the shoppers, and failing. Later on we came across a 6 lane arterial that was being used as parking. I think pictures speak louder than words here so I'll just throw this up and call it a night. Tomorrow is a day where I do an independent project so I'll catch up on event blogging, and actually do my presentation.

Merchant Culture In Korea

So just another quick though before it escapes. I've noticed that merchants and markets in Korea have a very different style of selling stuff than they do in America. It looks like in Korea the markets are run by single people. I've never had any scanned by a Korean. Everything is just handed and they tell you the price. Most of the shops we've visited were run by one person. They rarely leave, but when they do they just lock up the shop and walk out. The scale of vending here is much more personal. However the scale of the markets is giant. I walked around Dongdemoon for 2 hours and didn't see half of the market. There were at least 3 other markets that were just a bit smaller as well.

The next in this series of small observations will be the relationship between cars streets and people in Korea.

Security

Instead of writing about what I did for the last to days I'm going to take a break and write about something that I've been seeing ever seance I got here, but have been to lazy to talk about. That is the security culture.

I haven't seen any crime or indicators of crime in the city. Nevertheless I've seen barbed wire on some houses, and CCTV's in nearly every shop, and on a lot of streets prominently displayed. Your always being reminded that your being watched here. I thought Seoul was such a safe place, and yet this culture seems obsessed with watching and keeping safe. I don't know if this is a reaction to the number of people, the fact that even though Seoul is safe its also big, or some other factor that I don't notice. We even saw a store that sold CCTV equipment. Granted it was in a wholesale part of town, but it existed. Thats something I've never seen in Seattle. I Really don't like the entire situation. Anyhow thats one issue that I've noticed with Seoul's culture.

The one one that I've seen is the prevalence of RFID Cards. Here I actually think Seoul has a good implementation and should actually be observed. We use and RFID called T money to get on the Subway. It is a passive card, with a range of ~1cm, if that. This prevents unwanted tracking by other readers outside of government control. Every time you get on the Subway or a bus you scan your T money card. Every time you get off you have to scan as well. This creates a perfect tracking system to get exact info on the flow of people. I would love to get my hands on that data actually. The data on the cards is also private. You buy a card from a convince store with cash, and recharge your card with cash. This is much better than the Orca system what Seattle Metro is thinking about doing. There all travel info is tied to a distinct person instead of a distinct card. Granted I've seen special cards here, I don't quite know what else they do, but they defiantly are tied to an actual person. That system has a potential for abuse, as opposed to tying information to a card.

Anyhow its interesting to see that prevalence or an RFID culture in a foreign country, when Seattle is still trying to do research into its effects. Thats all from over here for a bit. I've got to meet with Jeff in 10 min to talk about my individual project tomorrow. It should go well I'm going to do a project on Subways and design patterns. Hopefully it will turn out well.

Day 5? Chung Gey Chong River and Seoul Redevelopment

Today we went to Chung Gey Chong a man made stream with in the middle of Seoul. The theme of today was looking at urban redevelopment. We started out at the Chung Gey Chong Cultural Center. By the time we took the subway there I was drenched in sweat. The Museum highlighted the better cultural parts of redeveloping Chung Gey Chong. But kind of swept under the rug the relocation of hundreds of vendors and criticism of the project.

From there we walked to the head of Chong Gey Chong. Along the way I noticed that the stream was designed very well from an Ecological standpoint. It had breakwaters to slow down the stream, plenty of shade and filtering through the use of rushes, and even some places where standing water could accumulate. I even saw a heron of some sort. I got really excited that the designers took that much into consideration when building the stream. Sadly I found out later that the stream basically gets completely destroyed every time there is a rainstorm.


When we got to the head of the stream we took a break for lunch. It was in the center of the bushiness super block so everything was overpriced. Chinese food cost 30,000 won. The noodles we settled on cost 6,000 won each. For comparison Dinner tonight cost 47,000 won for 5 people. More on that later though.

After lunch one of Prof Hou's old students took over the class. We toured 4 super blocks alond Chong Gey Chung. I didn't find it that interesting at the time, but thinking back it was kind of amazing. The 4 blocks had 4 completely different types of industry associated with each block. We went from the central business district to food/residential to light industry to a market place. I'll see if I can find good pictures to describe it later.

When we got back to the Hostel I was dead tired and spent about 2 hours trying to fix a computer downstairs. It didn't really happen and I took a bit of a nap. Then we had a half hour of getting the group moving to get dinner. I went with Mary-Ann, Alexis, Mung, and Matias to get some Korean BBQ. It was easily the best dinner I've had in Seoul. It was just in this little hole in the wall alley that we walk through to get to Jongno-sam-ga a close subway station. Well actually it was outside, but it only opens at night. In the daytime its completely clear, but at night seats get set out and people have their dinner outside in really balmy weather. So we just sat down out there and realized that the menu wasn't in English. So we used the tried and true system of ordering thing per person starting from the top. We just got a lot of raw meat. Which we realized we needed to put onto of the grill in the middle of us. We also got an insane amount of free side dishes/ dipping stuff. Plus a free bottle of Soju :). Note to self Mushrooms with salt in then taste amazing. Anyhow we ate there for like an hour and a half and went back to scrap booking for a assignment.

Now its getting to late and I should get to bed. Tomorrow if Friday here which means party night. There might not be entries for the next few days. We'll see.

Seoul Day 8/29 Market Day

Well theres something wrong with the router in the HIK Hostel. I'm fairly sure the DNS is broken.

Anyhow today was really interesting. We went to two Markets. Again the weather is perfect, I'm sweating a bit, but its only about 25-26 degrees out. The first Market we went to Nongdemoon, The South Gate. We went there around 10 in the morning. It was the first market I've got to except for pikes place, and the scale couldn't compare. We spent 2 hours wondering around the same number of blocks documenting the items being sold and I don't feel like we really got a good feel for what was there. We walked into someones house right in the center of market We didn't realize it at the time of course, but it gave us roof access. We got some nice shots showing private space in this very public area. The market is really best described as chaotic There was some informal order, but for the most part it looked like there was no structure at all. Much less ordered than Pikes Place.

I also got asked how tall I was like 15 times. Its getting kind of annoying now. I once even got called a gentleman. Apparently people are always wondering if my roommate is a girl or not. Heyoung the Korean on our trip has told us that little Korean kids are talking about it all the time.

In the afternoon there were sketchbook reviews and presentations I got destroyed by both of them. Then promptly took a nap. At night we went to another market. Dongdemoon. This place was amazing. Apparently the largest market in the world. It went from wholesalers to street vendors in scale. We walked into a few department stores only to find that the entire store was wholesale for the street vendors. I bought my first engrish shirt there. I hope its still funny back in the states. Sadly something that I ate with dinner didn't agree with me so I was feeling kind of sick later on at night. I did manage to snap some cool pictures with Matt's DSLR and noticed some amazing patterns in the city. At night arterials the naturally blocked off by vendors and the street become a place of market. Its pretty amazing. Something that you could never do in the states. Mathias and I walked back to the Hostel along Chong Gye Chong River. I'll write more about that river tomorrow. We made it back at like 2am and I promptly passed out.

Korea Class Day 2

So today I woke up late, thought and held up the class for about 10 min. Oups...

Anyway

Seoul Day 3

Well is day 4 in the morning and I'm trying to do readings for my class, but the internet is to slow to load any of them. Yesterday we started out going to Isadong street. A major center for art near our hostel. It was my first taste of looking at streets from a design prerspective. I had a few

Quick Thoghts

First when I was at the N Seoul Tower I heard the Pirates theme in a Korean military demonstration.

Secondly I now know that some things are universal, like mothers telling their kids not to touch things in stores.

Finally I went to a Korean mini mart bought some water, and am fairly sure I got the talk about how girls must fawn over you because your so tall, in Korean. It was great.

Korea Day 3

Today was a short day so far. I had to split it up to check into the new Hostel and that compleatly runned my flow. Got on the road at 10ish and went to Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was a nice place, nothing really to write home about. I'll post pictures later. The strange thing was the lack of seperation of the palace grounds from the rest of the city. Everything just merged togeather. From what I remember about Japan this is a compleatly different style. Also because everything was recreated and rebuilt it looked a bit cheesy. I only got about an hour there before I had to go check in to my new Hostel at 1:00.

On my way to the Hostel I wound up on the wrong bus, but managed to find a subway line and took that to the Hostel. When I got there it was 1:30, I went to check in and found out check in time was at 2:00. I waited until then, and ran into my Professor. There were some compleacations checking in and I got out of the Hostel at 3:00ish. I said I would be back around 5 to help people find the Hostel, and so I'm taking a break now to write the blog. So far I'm the only one here.

Anyhow in my 2 hour break I tried to go on a hike. That didn't pan out. It was a bit to far away from the subway line and I was worried I didn't have enough time/ I might get lost. Instead I went back to Gyeongbokgung to look at a Museum there. Again nothing impressive, but still nice. Anyhow thats it for today. Maybe tonight will be more interesting. I'm still looking forward to getting in a swim some time soon.

Korea Day Two

Well a lot happened today. My jetlag is still here though. Starting at the beginning. I work up and had to walk past 3 older strangers in my house to get to the shower. I talked to them later though. It turned out they were in a Classical Band touring the world. The owner of my Hostel speaks great English. He set me up with a metro map, and information on how to get where ever I needed to go. I got a t-card (bus pass) and found an international atm to get money from. My previous days mistakes have been corrected. I still don't have shoes multiple pairs of shoes, but thats alright.

I started my day by doing a walking trip up from Seoul station and finishing up at Seoul Tower. I walked through Namsan, a kind of mountain park. It was uphill all the way. About half way up I came across a science center. This place was amazing. I'll post pictures and write more about it later. From what I saw of the place it basically had all of my high school science condensed in a form that 6 year old Koreans could understand. It was free, and almost better than the Pacific Science Center. No wonder the US is doing bad getting kids interested in Science.

I went to the top of Seoul Tower, nice view, bad pictures. They all came out reflected with a flash. However I did get some nice shots of a gimmicky Korean military demonstration. Again, pictures forthcoming.

From there I took a bus back to the subway line. I wandered around the subway a bit, figuring out the amazingly simple system. If you've got a T card you just hit it to the scanner and away you go. It does bring up some interesting concerns about privacy though. I wonder how the system is tracked and how it works... On the bright side transportation is really cheep. No more than 1,000 won (about a dollar) to get anywhere on the subway, and if you take a bus after that it you get a discount and it only costs you 100 won to get on.

Anyhow I managed to get my self to COEX mall. It was just a mall. Nothing really special. Lots of people in a tight space. It really drained me. I wanted to get dinner, but I noticed then that the ordering system for Korean restraints is a little different that in America. Only knowing how to say Hello, and Thank you in Korean made me a little gunshy about going up alone. I wanted to go watch Starcraft here, and even found the MCB game center, but it was locked. Apparently there aren't games all the time. Instead of went to the Aquarium. It was a steep 15$ entry charge, and really gimmicky. The Seattle Aquarium was way better. I got a lot of pictures there though. The one good thing about going to the mall was this guy I saw. Again pictures later. His shirt is classic.

I left COEX at around 6:30, and needed to decompress. I saw the old Olympic Park was nearby and took the subway over there. It was perfect. I walked around just enjoying the peaceful atmosphere. It was a great way to decompress after crowds of the mall. Sadly it was getting dark so my pictures all came out badly. Also its kind of hard to capture the spirit of the place in photos. I also found the old Olympic swimming pool. It looks like its open to the public, or the people that I saw swimming in there were just a really bad masters team. In any event I think I'm going to go back and do a few laps in my swim trunks. My speedo was another thing I forgot. I'll also have to come back to America with a pair of Korean goggles. Anyhow as I was leaving the park I saw lots of people working out on public exercise gear. I saw this earlier in the day as Namsan as well. It was cool to see the public actually use workout equipment instead of letting it go to waste like the stuff in Salmon Bay. Near the subway station I saw three rappers performing. I got there right as they finished their set, but it sounded like a good show. After they left the stage a out door movie came up. This is a pretty cool thing that Seoul did for its people. Setting up a giant outdoor movie right in the middle of a public park. I don't know how often they do it, but I'd have to assume every Saturday at least. I sat down and started watching. To my surprise the movie with in English with Korean subtitles. Of course with something this perfect there has to be a catch. The movie was Step Up 2:The Streets. I watched for about 3 minutes and got my ass out of there as quickly as I could. I feel bad for Korea getting its taste of America from such a bad movie.

Anyhow after that I just went home. It took about 30min to get back to the house from the Olympic Park, which I thought was good time. btw did I mention the subway comes every 3 min, and buses like ever 5? Its so much better than the Seattle system.

Korea Day one

Met lots of cool people Catlin on the first plane and we talked all they way through. Then I met that cool Korean med student on the second plane. She gave me lots of good advice. I got in at 8, immigration was really fast Then I was tired and looking around for information. I found a bunch of Korean taxi drivers who were more than willing to help I was to tired to really think things through. I was told to take a bus to another hotel and then form there take a taxi. Instead I just took a taxi I paid out of the ass for the trip It cost me 110$ or 110,000 won. Not the best. I also appear to have forgotten my dress shoes and sandals and adapter. Shouldn't have repacked :(. The place I'm staying is nice. I'll post pictures later. Jetlag is hitting me fairly hard. It's 5am here.

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