KOREA BY THE NUMBERS & THE ROADS TO NOWHERE

Day five already? It's flying by. Funny how accomplishing the simplest things in a foreign country can be so satisfying. Just navigating my way through purchasing a cup of coffee, a Korean Herald, and a porridge breakfast brings me vast satisfaction. That and I can almost pronounce "thank you" in Korean.

Headed out alone and was surprised at how empty the streets are on Saturday morning. I guess it makes sense, but the streets are usually so frenetic that this just seemed completely wrong. Also, nothing opens until 9 or so (with the lovely exception of the 24-hour PC Bang). So I diddled on the intarwebs for a while and went back to the street later. Rustling through the Herald I found a discussion of real-estate in Seoul. A boom-market which the government has attempted to reign in on the grounds that it is too speculative. So the government is proposing higher taxes on multiple home-owners (on the assumption they might be speculators) and increasing the housing supply by making public land available for construction and creating new towns on the South (desirable) side of Seoul. This is in response to an increase in house prices in Seoul that, in some areas, rose 20% at the start of the year.

The passage of the bills seems to be in question and apartment prices in Seoul are reaching historical highs. How high? Apartment prices in Seoul are 12.11 million won per pyeong (a pyeong is 3.3 meters square - or twelve hexadecimals short of a long ton. I can never keep that stuff straight).

So that would be $12,497.520 per pyeong (at a selling rate of 1,302.75 won to the dollar - I think. There is math involved here so I could be far astray and have no idea.)

2.54 centimers per inch -->
100 centimeters per meter..
so 330 centimeters per side of a pyeong --->
Therefore -->
129.92126 inches per side of a pyeong
so... doing more effing math....
16,879.534 square inches per pyeong (divide by 144)
117.21899 square feet per pyong -->
13.024332 square yards per pyeong

so that would be $106.61694 per square foot.

This is reasonably puny compared to prices in the United States (although US prices are for stand alone houses). San Jose homes typically sell for $300 to $400 a square foot which compares (is "favorably" the word? Or is it "unfavorably?") with a nationwide median cost of around $150 a square foot. As far as condos go, perhaps a closer comparison, in Manhattan they are almost $660/foot.

All this makes me doubt my math! ;-)


THE ROAD TO NOWHERE
One of the reasons Koreans must be the most telephonically wired people in the world is that while a fine public transportation system makes it easy to get anywhere, it is often impossible to know where "anywhere" is. See this picture:



Looks pretty normal to western eyes - it's two street signs (in front of the coolest building in Seoul). And that is why it is rare. Most of Seoul has no street signs and thus figuring locations out by address is impossible. There are no street addresses. Actually, as in the picture, there are some street signs, but they are mainly in the alley sections of Seoul. Seoul is very alley-cultured and you don't have to walk very far (in North Seoul, at least) to find an alleyway which leads directly into a rat's warren of other alleys that twist unpredictably around each other, sometimes just petering out, sometimes leading to even smaller alleys, and sometimes abruptly depositing you back on a main street of some sort. Each of the alleys is equipped with a colorful old woman pouring an enormous bucket of something toxic into a sewer grate as well as various little restaurants, butchers, and other businesses. Only the largest of these alleys have street signs, so you wander from thoroughfare's without name, through a level of alleys with names to a smaller level of alleys that go nameless.

Eddie has still not told me how mail is delivered. When I asked he mumbled something I didn't understand. The short version of what this means is that navigation is by landmark. With no street signs and complicated mazes of alleys, everyone in Seoul is completely lost at all times. When we went out to meet a friend for lunch it took 6 phone calls to the friend and 4 stops for directions from other people on the street. Without the cell phone there would have been absolutely no chance we ever would have found our friend at the restaurant. It is a small amelioration of this problem that Seoul abounds with very distinct buildings, temples, and subway stops by which locations can be recognized and described.

MARKET DAY
I was partially recovered from the octopus meal and Ed and I headed off to see the famous market districts of Seoul. There are two by Seoul tower, one a bit older (Namdaemun market) and more traditional, the other a bit upscale (Dongdaemun Market) . We went to Namdaemun market first and saw at least two things you aren't going to see in the US.

This here is a sign advertising the availability of dog-meat for human consumption.



This is not supposed to be a "feature" of Korean culture anymore and the owner of the store started yelling his head off when I took the picture.

and this is a legless beggar, lower body clad in innertubes from industrial sized wheels. He pushes a wheeled crate supporting an alms bowl with his forehead and kind of pushups his way through the crowd. I saw a couple of beggars with the inner-tube lower-leg protection. An ingenious solution to an effed up problem. I will say that I never saw anyone give one of these guys money, and if you look at the picture you'll see that Koreans (like city-dwellers in the US) look right past the guy as if he doesn't exist.



REVENGE OF THE KOREAN FOOD
This post is a bit short because as soon as we returned to the apartment my grippe returned with a vengeance. Eddie wanted to go out (it was xmas eve over here) but I was cramping up and feeling like sh*t. I ended up going to sleep at about 9 and sleeping fitfully until about 8 this morning. Somewhere in the night I heard Ed get up and vomit for about 20 minutes, so whatever caused the thing was something we both ate or drank. Eddie says it was the beer (I drank some before we went out to the market, but by the time we got back I was too ill to drink anything but water. Eddie drank some just to celebrate xmas eve (while I was lying, fighting for my young life, in the room next door. Thanks Ed!).

I refuse to believe this because beer is good! I think it might have been the "noodle on a stick" (in the foreground) we got from the street vendor



I still feel a bit rocky this morning and it is almost 10 and Ed is still sleeping. Tonight the POSSLQ arrives and we are in the Imperial Hotel in South Seoul. It will be a good night to sleep on a bed again and use western sized towels. As I lay writhing in pain last night it snowed in Seoul. Daytime Seoul is pretty.

LAST PICS
Every place in Seoul seems to have a bizarrely happy animated representative/logo. This is on the side of the police station by the University:



And a picture of Chonggye Stream (below) which is only important because during the occupation the Japanese completely covered it over for some inscrutable reason. It has now been re-opened and is a beautiful walk through some of downtown Seoul. There are supposedly light and water shows some nights, but I haven't gotten there yet.



Merry Xmas from the land of the Morning Calm!