on Seoul... further reflections

Fall has arrived, and the recent beautiful weather has encouraged me to take in some new adventures in Seoul. I have been busy for several weeks wandering through parks along the riverside, dining in all manner of delicious restaurants, and generally trying to make the most of this time before the cold, and the dark. (Although the dark is going to be much less of a problem in the winter than in recent years. Yay!) In short, I am feeling invigorated by Seoul. I have as a consequence been writing more- writing outside my blog, but nonetheless writing more- reading more, and drinking loads more coffee in order to do more.


I guess between my birthday and Busan, September felt like a busy travel month, and it was strange for October to arrive and have no foreseeable travel plans in the future. This is an entirely new feeling for me, one that I am not altogether comfortable with. Having said that, spending all this time in Seoul has brought out the better aspects of my city, and given me some time to reflect on it.


I think in my very first posting, I compared Seoul to Dallas. If you've never heard of my lost weekend in Dallas, this was not meant as a compliment. However, as the months have worn on I have been unable to move past this comparison. My recent travels within my own city (what a joyous sentence that is- how many people live in a city big enough that traveling around it can feel like a mini-holiday?) have caused me to amend this comparison. Seoul is like Dallas, or rather I should say Dallas is like Seoul. I mentioned previously the slogan "hi Seoul! Seoul of Asia." My new nomination is "Seoul- what Dallas aspires to be!" Dallas is a massive American megacity aspiring to be regionally significant. It is tall, grey, and sprawling. It is most famous for food, drink, and sports. Seoul is a regionally significant megacity that is becoming more globalized. And the food and drink! Seoul has an eating and drinking (in the imbibing sense) culture that exceeds almost anyplace I have visited. On almost any corner in Seoul, you can find the most amazing meat that you grill yourself while being offered unlimited quantities of fresh vegetables. I had the most amazing pork neck- so tender and with almost no fat, which is occasionally the negative of Korean meat- for about 8 USD recently. The restaurant is open air, so as to allow the smoke to escape, and also the amazing smells. I was a little hungry when I sat down, I was starving by the time we ordered, having smelled what was cooking (literally!) at the next table over. There is so much more to Korean cuisine than grilled meat, however I must admit I have not ventured into other dishes enough.


Seoul is not as grey and grim as made out; it is not green enough, true, but it has made strides in recent years and is getting better. Like New York, it has an ambitious riverside reclamation project, which I believe will turn the whole riverside into a long park on both sides of the river. And the sort of out-of-the-way Olympic park will soon be better linked to the rest of the city by the still expanding new subway line. After 8 months, when I hear about projects in Seoul, I generally just shrug and wonder when they will be completed. This is not out of apathy, it is just a general acceptance that Korean ambition will see the project quickly through, whereas in too many other cities ambitious urban plans seemingly are never set in motion. For another NYC parallel, how about the oft-discussed Freedom Tower? Seoul isn't there yet, but it is an increasingly prosperous and perhaps influential global city. Dallas may have its new alien spacecraft billion dollar stadium, but Seoul has the impressive world cup stadium, and its Olympic legacy is largely intact. I guess Dallas still has the sporting edge, but perhaps that is due to the more varied pursuits of Seoul- more galleries, more independent shops (as a man, is it ok to observe that Seoul seems to have more cool little independent clothing stores and designers than I have ever seen it given credit for?)

I think I intended this to be a fuller blog, and to explore more Seoul/Dallas parallels. I should explore how youthful Seoul is (I'm not going to bother looking it up, but I think I read somewhere that there are 44 universities in Seoul). When my friends visited, after spending several days in the nightlife centers, they had the shocking realization that there are NO old people in Seoul. Apart from Adjummas, that is, but that is a whole other entry, if not a serious sociological treatise. I digress... I should also explore Seoul's creative use of urban space, but I'm no expert and maybe this is dragging.

But I suppose all that can be saved with a simple sentence- I am feeling more excited to be living in Seoul, and feel a much greater sense of civic pride than I did upon arriving, really than I did a month ago. I certainly don't feel like an insider- I could not begin to set a story in Seoul, but I feel like I am gaining something intangible from this tangled, sprawling urban swirl.