Falling Up (From My Bestseller "Great Expectoration: Spit-Takes on Korea")

Korean construction is, well.. unusual by the standards I am used to. It happens incredibly quickly and sometimes looks like all the details haven't been thought out.

Right up the street from my place was a lovely 삼 겹 살 (Sam gyap sal - bbqued piggy) place which had an outdoor garden with graceful trees and a proprietor who played guitar. His wife and he cooked and served and it was one of the OAF and my favorite places.

Consequently, it was doomed.

One day we saw the owners taking things out, the next day the windows were busted out, and the following day the land was scraped to bare earth.

Yesterday the construction began and I am going to take a series of photos (one a day, I hope) to show the thing going up. I stopped and "talked" to one of the construction guys, and while my Korean didn't quite get me to what the building would be, it did get that it would be a three story building.

Yesterday, in temperatures below zero, they poured the "foundation." This is the first picture up there .. it is of two inches of concrete poured directly over bare dirt (that blown up part of the photo shows where the dirt actually pokes through). This morning, with the concrete set (uh, maybe?), they began placing a frame of rebar above the concrete. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the way of a connective foundation here .. certainly I don't see any footings, or anything that would tie the foundation to the ground. We'll see what happens as they continue along. This may just be a difference in construction technique because Korea is not on the Pacific Rim and thus not subject to much in the way of earthquake threats.

As is the case with all Korean construction, great pains are taken to protect the buildings next door - cloths are hung up on their walls! ;-) I'm not sure I would consider that sufficient.

Finally, because it is butt-cold, the workers keep a small fire going at the edge of the site, to which they occasionally repair to warm up.

As I watched and took photos, the workers began setting up the metal forms that will contain the concrete walls. Korean construction is often much more quiet than construction in the United States because the buildings are made out of concrete and not wood - no hideous hammering at 7:30 each morning.

Tomorrow, I hope to get some pictures of the concrete wall creation.

I'm gonna miss that restaurant.