The neighborhood where I work is called Hugok [후곡]. In some ways, it feels more like “my neighborhood” than where I live (Janghangdong [장항동], oftimes referred coloquially as Ra-peh [라페] after the mall nearby, Ra-peh-seu-tah [라페스타 ] i.e. “La Festa”), which has a more big-city, downtown feel. Where I live is kind of like “downtown Ilsan,” while where I work is more like a real neighborhood, somewhere. In fact, from a development standpoint, Hugok is marginally older than Janghang, the former dating from the late 1980s while the latter was built with the subway line extension in 1993. Parts of Hugok along Ilsan Road were already built and inhabited when I was here in 1991.
I’m writing this because although there are 3 or 4 different Starbucks stores in Janghang, serving as an index of the area’s “downtowny” character and internationalist orientation, there has never been a Starbucks in Hugok.
That, apparently, is changing. I snapped this photo last Friday, looking across the street from my hagwon’s former location, a few blocks east of the new location.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]