A long post with pictures!

We could call it self-assurances, or perhaps painting facades.  Nevertheless, we thought some pictures and introduction to our neighborhood would intertwine well a post about the weekend of visitors.

Some family and friends have, lovingly, been concerned if being here in Seoul would be difficult for daily living.  Such as who would bring us food on days Annie needs more care, and I am busy with that.  Those gestures can be incredibly kind and helpful, no doubt.  But for most things, our neighborhood leaves little to worry.  Even compared to the UW university district, the “walk score” and transportation access where we are is incredible. The Seoul subway network is well planned.  Neither of us have lived in a place with a better combination of accessibility and safety, even when we think back to our years in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, and the States.

Here’s a photo of our apartment as you’ll see it when approaching from one of the subway stations.  The other two are looking back towards the same junction from the apartment. One at sunset, one at sunrise.

When we were in search of apartments, we had three simple criteria.  Walk-ability to a grocery store, commute to work, and close to green space.  A more English speaking neighborhood would simply be a bonus.  The relocation agent and realtor had flatly told us that such a trio was not very possible.  Well, mapping and other avenues paved the way.  A little green space is right below us, and we are a ten minute walk from a river path.  The office is one mile away, shorter as the crow flies.  The small building in front of us?  We have yet to fully explore it, but from our visits, this is what it houses:

• Grocery store in the basement
• Two butchers also in the basement
• Convenience store
• Two bakeries. One of which is Australian Organic certified, whatever that means being in Korea; and sells lunch sandwiches in baguettes.
• Small Korean eatery
• Vietnamese restaurant
• A little sushi place
• A farm to shop store with meats, eggs, veg. Lunch salads, and pizza.
• A co-op, which emphasis on natural/organic products.
• An overly expensive organic produce shop
• A fruit shop
• Two pre-made banchan (Korean side dishes) shops which sometimes also sell main dishes, probably for busy parents.
• Fried chicken, of course
• Mysterious take-out only places.  Where we’ve noticed folks leaving carrying take out. These are probably also the places that stick the delivery flyers on our door.  But we’ll leave this till we progress to another level of Korean adaptation.
• Olive young (akin to body shop)
• Some cupcake place
• And a few floors of private cram schools that, we’ve come to realize, cause us to pay a premium for everything else

Repeat that building, in varying ages, about 8 times, and that would be the row in front of the apartment complex.  The older buildings might be more adventuresome and challenging, and make us prone to an over indulgence of weekly fried chicken.  But we wouldn’t starve.  In fact, everyone non-Korean who has visited think it’s an amazing convenience.  We’ve yet to even understand our one mile radius.  Can you imaging the higher walkscore areas in Seoul, considering that we are living in an area where “there’s nothing there”, according to her Korean co-workers?

Of course, till we have better ability with the language, the smiles and gesturing are all part of living.  Especially in a local neighborhood where tourists do not typically venture.  Don’t expect the English menus of Itaewon here.  More often than not, it’s all in hangul with no pictures.  We’re the visitor, so it’s on us learn the language.

 

Annie felt good enough Friday morning after biopsy to walk, so we crossed the major street (where I took the first photo of the apartment building).  And met my sis for brunch round the corner.

 

Some friends have been curious about my mention of “glamorous dumpster diving” (how furniture is seemingly just tossed away).  Even my sister, who is much classier than I am, pointed at items and said, “Look at that! It’s perfectly good! Do you want it?” Here’s an example.

Perfectly good, and nice, home office setup. Even the drawers had the smooth auto dampened close feature. The desk had, oh, two removable crayon marks? If we were under different circumstances, I know where they’d be now! 🙂

My sis and I headed to the grocery store as Annie napped.  I had told her about the short season large peaches that we had. Not really remembering the size well, the normal “large” seemed right.  And given that a whole case of 16 peaches were only 2x the price of 4, the “Asian” in us succumbed to buying the case.  I blame my sis.  But the blame’s on me for identifying the wrong type of peaches.  There is large, and there is LARGE.  From translation, it’s something along the lines of Giant Honey Peach.  We hope that we can’t overdose on peaches.

 

Figs are also in season. I’ve never gotten to see figs sold in cases.  So yes, another case of fruit.  We’ve had the figs straight, baked with cheese and honey, and at breakfast with yogurt.

 

Back to the neighborhood.  There are lots of independent coffee shops in Seoul. Independent does not necessarily mean good coffee though.  However, right at the other front corner of our apartment complex is a quaint coffee house.  My sis and I hung out there for the afternoon.  They roast small batches of coffee, and make good drinks. It’s no Storyville (Seattle reference), but good.  With deserts and cookies; and salads and sandwiches over lunch.  Friends have also asked us about churches nearby.  Well, there’s at least 3 surrounding the apartment complex, but none with English congregations in the neighborhood I’ve noticed yet.  We had bbq for dinner; in a different building in front of the complex.

 

Saturday, two days after biopsy.  A sore butt does not deter my beloved from walking around for some good ice cream.  Our favorite till date, Baek Mi Dang 百味堂.  Simple and pure.  Organic milk, in full creaminess, gets poured into the soft serve ice cream machine. Good thing this isn’t on our block, it’s a distant one mile walk away.

 

Talking about distances.  The hospital she will be primarily getting treatment at seems far.  Relatively.  It is 2 miles away.  The hospital she’s been getting radiation at is 1 mile away, with one of it’s shuttle buses passing a bus stop at the end of the block.  Yes, hospitals in Seoul tend to have shuttles covering a sizable population of their neighborhood.  We see many elderly independently going to their medical appointments on the shuttles.

Yes, no doubt an emergency would be tricky.  Though the emergency line here has an English access option;  plus we have some amazing support from her workplace, including emergency contacts.

R, my brother-in-law, routed his flight from CA to SG through Seoul, and spent Sunday with us as well.  We walked to lunch at a Japanese place, next to where the SAP Seoul office used to be.  Just a block away.  Sis used to work for SAP and had been to the area a few times!  Back at the apartment, we played Quiddler and some Scrabble variations before they took off back for Singapore.

 

I have to confess that it would definitely be easier to have a Korean friend to explore food options with.  It can be stressful.  But I finally got around to installing Mangoplate, a food app recommended to us that has an English interface option.  A note for friends who will use the app:  the app, at least the English UI, uses Google maps for display.  Google maps is  horrendously abysmal in Korea, so assume you’ll get lost if you rely on it for pinpointing an address.  So make sure to click directions and then select a Korean mapping app.

We used it to discover a steamed ribs place, where we went to dinner with S.  We repeated the mistake of ordering too much food for 3.  Ribs, cold noodles, and six huge dumplings.

There’s a trend we’ve yet to decipher. Certain restaurants seem to get really busy on certain days but not others. I’m not sure if it’s a weekday/weekend thing for certain foods?

We’ve also been appreciating the milder weekend that continued into Monday.  A sunset view of Lotte Tower from the apartment. (It’s currently the world’s 5th tallest building?)

And here’s another telling photo for friends who are curious about the “cram schools till 10pm”.   The “rush hour” in our neighborhood happens right after 10pm, when parents come to chauffeur children home from the private hagwons.  Turns out “10pm” is because Seoul imposed a curfew on hagwons some years ago.  It would be later otherwise.  You can see the popularity of the corner tteokbokki lady with the children, who are eagerly crowding her stall before they go home.  Nutritional options not withstanding, as long as there are ravenous hungry children at 10pm, we’d probably not have a shortage of late dinner options.

 

Annie felt well enough one evening for us to attempt the 10 minute walk (15 at her restricted pace) to the path not far from us.  A path we’d originally hoped to run and bike on as we settled in. We walked only a little of the path, and headed back before any discomfort.

 

We also tried out the little sushi place in the building first referenced at the start of the post.  Hole in the wall.  Three little tables.  We liked it.  And it was a chance for her to have sushi (or something with a raw element) since her WBC/neutrophils are better now.  Before the counts go down again from the next sequence of upcoming radiation treatments.

Yes, I skipped the more personal, trying, imagery.  It is sometimes nice to slice and view things through rosier and happier lenses.  Joy is a good thing.

There are undoubtedly a host of challenges to live in a city where processes and language are foreign to us.  Daily conveniences, such as groceries, are luckily, not the difficulties we face or will face.  Plus Seoul and many of the people we’ve met are wonderful.  Guessing the difference between bulk hand soap and bulk dishwashing liquid though, is just one of the examples of how comedic memories are made.

Understanding procedures and processes, in a different language, can be difficult.  Even more so when extended to medical.  We’re managing, with help, either from real persons, or from guessed translations.  So don’t expect us to be able to re-interpret well.

Neither does being able to buy groceries make us experts about our neighborhood.  Nor enhance any abilities to communicate well in the store, or to understand a complete menu.  So we’ll always welcome the support of discovery and introduction; especially of food :).

The tiniest of rainbows peaked out after a rain shower.

 

Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
~ Kermit the frog