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.