Caveat: the exit 7 gang

I went to Seoul today, and saw my friends Peter and Basil. I may not see them again for a while. Actually, it's been a few years since I last saw Basil, since he'd gone to live in Turkey for a few years. But he's back in Gwangju, so he came up to Seoul for the weekend.

We met at exit 7 of the 동대문역사문화공원역 (Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Subway Station), which is possibly the longest-named subway station in Seoul. It also is a pretty complicated station, with three separate lines and a maze of passages under the neighborhoods above. Anyway, this is the area that I have always called in my mind "Russiatown" – but there's nothing official in that designation, and in recent years the area that had once had the gritty feel of a Central Asian (ex-Soviet republics) immigrant ghetto has been gentrifying quite a bit. But this is the place where I first met Peter, at some party Basil was hosting at a Kazakh-Russian restaurant we've frequented there.

So here is exit 7, looking across the street at a snazzy new cafe with a Russian name next to a 7-11 store.

Here is my never-to-be-missed bowl of borscht, my beloved staple of Russian cuisine.

We took a group photo in front of the restaurant afterward.

Then we went to Gangnam. This is standing at Samseong Station (COEX Mall) looking west along Teheran-ro toward central Gangnam.

I saw this house which I liked architecturally – a rare post-war but pre-boom bit of architecture in otherwise boomified Gangnam.

Basil wanted to go to a bakery in Gangnam that served San Francisco sourdough style bread. It was called "Bob's Bread," which makes me think of my friend Bob, who often ate simple bread (arguably he gave me the habit of enjoying bread without anything on it – just bread).

Then we took a taxi to Itaewon, where Basil always stays when he comes to Seoul. I only ever ride a taxi in Seoul when I'm with Basil. He likes taking taxis places, whereas I'm a subway/bus/walk type person. But no problem. There was a nice view of Bukhansan northward across the river, while we sat in traffic on Eonjuro. 

Itaewon is such an amazing place – the atmosphere there is more like Koreatown in LA, or the Village in NYC, than it is like anywhere else in Korea. There are crazy people ranting on the streets, crowds of foreign tourists and residents, Africans and Middle-Easterners hawking things, police patrols, US military on leave, etc. But it's been gentrified, too – 10 years ago, it ONLY had those things. Now there are hoards of Korean tourists, too, looking for an edgy out-of-country experience close to home. 

We went to a cafe and talked for a few more hours. Then I went home. … Well, I have to stop thinking of it as "home."

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]