Street Scenes I

Today being a half-day, the English Department had a meeting after school. At the duck restaurant in Mok-dong. Instead of duck galbi, we had it roasted, and it was incredible. The stuffing was wild rice, some other grains, fruit such as raisins and plums, and aromatic twigs and bark. NB: do not eat the wood. Panchan included salad with a delicious citrus dressing.

I took my camera but completely forgot to take pictures. So to make up for it, I took some on my way home. I'll add a couple more shots that I haven't used anywhere and call this post "Street Scenes", first in an occasional series.


The Hangul in red says noraebang in case the microphones didn't make it clear enough. While the English says "Good day!" the singing peasants seem drunk or really tired or something. Odd. And why are they in their stocking feet?


This is a view of the street a block down from the noraebang. Seoul is up one hill and down another. Also note the tangle of phone/power lines criss-crossing the street. This is typical--actually, it's a little tame.


This greengrocer sets up his truck almost every day on this same corner about a block away from my officetel.


This is a Saturday night in Sadang, which is one of about thirty or forty heavy-duty party districts in the big city. Seoul has a very active nightlife scene, far more so than Chicago or Atlanta, the only two comparable cities I have experienced.


This is the Itaewon subsway stop on line #6 at the end of the night. If I have one big complaint about Seoul's public transportation system, it is that it closes down too early--the last buses and trains run at midnight or a little earlier.

I'm not sure why this is, but I have two possible theories:
1) the powers want to encourage workers to quit drinking early enough to go home and get a night's sleep so they can do productive work the next morning;
2) taxis benefit greatly from late night drunks trying to go home, and their lobby exercises enough influence to maintain the status quo.