Seoul is a constant construction zone. Koreans seem to feel ill at ease when something isn't being torn down and rebuilt. Just like the plastic surgery scene. When I first moved to this neighborhood, there was some sidewalk being torn up across the way.
But now it's WAY more than just the side of a sidewalk under attack.
Meanwhile, business goes on as usual. Just lots more dust and noise.
This corner was being torn up, I think to put down new paving bricks. This bboy-themed design is all over this area.
Something you'd NEVER see in the US b/c of liability insurance: the road is torn up and pieces of cloth are put down over bumpy sidewalks and you just walk over it. Treacherous but no one seems to mind.Today: panic attack about my shoes not matching my suit, buying $1 stockings on the sidewalk and a pair of shoes in the subway, only to find that they were too big. Mailing art, tutoring, rushing to meet the author of two books on hanji who was like, why are you doing this research?? and then running to meet my cousin to help him w/a few notes for MC-ing a medical conference tomorrow in English. He took me to this restaurant that has been around since 1970, in my grandfather's old hood. We used to go there as kids and the food was really good.
It's sad to see the neighborhood so changed. It only hit me today while waiting for the bus: I live really close to the hospital where my grandfather passed away 8 years ago. Tomorrow night I go to his father's death rites. I have no point of reference for my great-grandfather, except that he was a doctor who served a poor community so he never made money, which caused my grandmother to not let my father go to med school, b/c she thought that doctors went hungry. Otherwise, I know nothing else.
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