강미 | learning koreanOne of my old neighborhoods
If you’re looking for a way to waste some time, you could do better than I did earlier today. Antti over at Hunjangûi karûch’im wrote about the new address system in Seoul. If you’re not familiar with the old system, it could be hard to appreciate the need for a new one. The old one appeared to randomly assign numbers to residences and businesses. I never had any problem sending or receiving mail, but I would never use a street address to find my destination or to give directions to someone.
Anyway, Antti linked to the Seoul Metropolitan Government site (available in both Korean and English), and I zoomed in on one of my old neighborhoods, which left me awash in nostalgia.
I identified the entrance to an alley in which a 할머니 often sat selling cones of those little boiled snails (can’t remember the name) with an odor so strong I can smell them all the way over here in my office. 경희대학교 was up the street and around the corner to the right from the 할머니. My favorite feature of 경희대 was an unfinished (in 1988 and still in 1995) Gothic cathedral. Back in 1988 it was possible to walk all the way up the stairs onto the roof. The view was especially beautiful at night, but the daylight brought a couple of 아저씨s who may have been mystified by the sight of a couple of foreigners up there but were in no mood to let us stay.
By far my favorite place in the area was a small coffee shop called 암스테르담. Cross the street, take a left at KFC (instead of turning right at Burger King to go to up toward 경희대), go around the curve and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. It’s unlikely that it’s still there, the way that places like that come and go in 서울. It was shabby and dark, but the coffee was good and the iced Vienna coffee was even better. I spent many evening hours there, studying and reading and writing and looking out the window. I took friends there, too, but I remember it mostly as a warm, solitary place. Should I ever return for a visit, I would make a quick dash to see if it’s still there. And if it is, it’s worth a whole evening of my time.
Posted by kangmi on May 24, 2004 at 2:30 PM2 comments
