The Seoul I knew

The bus wound its way through the outskirts of Seoul. My destination was Chongno Sam Ga, an area in the city centre where we lived. It is also the site of a massive subway station, where three lines intersect. It’s so large that it has numerous exits, and you can easily find yourself disoriented if you pop out the wrong one, as happened to Carrie and me a few times.

I tried to steal glances of the familiar, but I recognized little. Maybe because it was dark, or maybe these were areas we didn’t frequent, or maybe it was because we most often travelled on the subway and so one has little reference for what’s above. Then I spotted Seoul Tower in the distance sitting atop Namsan, meaning south mountain, a 262 metre peak in the centre of the city. Minutes later, we stopped at a large intersection. I recognized it immediately. This was where Chongno St. and Sejon Boulevard meet. The latter of these two busy eight-lane streets is named after King Sejon, who reigned from 1418 to 1450. His biggest achievement was overseeing the creation of Hangul, the Korean language that consists of just 24 consonants and vowels, each with their own unique sound. Previous to the introduction of Hangul, Koreans used Chinese characters, but it was too difficult for commoners to learn, and so the King introduced a simpler language, whose characters rely primarily on the use of straight lines.

Statue of King Sejon.

Just as I remembered, Chongno was buzzing with activity. It was nine-thirty in the evening, and the shops were all still open and doing a brisk business. I got off the bus and walked a couple of blocks to my hotel to drop off my bags. I had a quick shower, and as I tasted the water on my lips it took me back instantly 15 years to when we lived here. It was such a brief, yet intense experience. More powerful than hearing a song that takes you back to a different time.

I remember how the street that led to our small hotel assaulted our senses the evening we arrived. The street was ablaze in light then, as it is now, from the little shops and restaurants that compete for space in this crowded city. The sidewalks were spilling over with people and street carts serving up unfamiliar dishes. What world had we just landed in, we wondered? But it didn’t take long for the strangeness to disappear, and it just became known as “our street”.

I walked along that street once again. And nothing had really changed. It was as we left it. The little 7-11 where I’d buy yogurt each morning was still there. And the smells were still the same—the carts serving up dried fish, woks full of food bubbling away in bright orange sauces, roasted chestnuts, and the scent of waste water underground rising from the grates in the sidewalk. The soju tents, too, were still there. Constructed of small tarps, these tents are set up in the evenings and serve food and soju, (Korean vodka). In winter, when the temperature drops below zero, the walls of the tent come down to protect patrons from the cold outside. And the drunken men, many in business suits, still stagger down the street holding each other up.

In this part of the city, streets and alleyways are filled with small restaurants and sidewalk carts

Fish...live, grilled and dried is everywhere

An alley leads to the narrow, pedestrian-only street where we lived. The hotel has been renovated and its name changed. And it’s now $80 per night, instead of the $18 we paid. But it still looks the same from the outside. Our room was only big enough for a double bed, a small table between two chairs, and a wardrobe where we hung our clothes. I often wonder how we managed to live in such a small space, but we made it work.

This was home...top floor

I looked up to where our window was. Without many conveniences, we’d use the ledge outside the window as our refrigerator in the colder months. We’d keep milk, ham, cheese, and drinks on the ledge. I remember I had gotten a cake for Carrie’s birthday, and wanted to save what was left for the following day, so we put the cake on the ledge overnight. In the morning it was gone. We looked down and saw that it had fallen onto the roof of a building below. I think the cake was still on that roof months later when we left.

I wondered about the family that used to run the hotel. The adult children who handed us our key when we returned at the end of each day. And the older couple who’d clean our bathroom and bring new towels and sheets. I thought about how we bathed, cleaned our dishes, and washed our clothes in the olive green bath tub. My hands would burn after wringing out the clothes. I stood at the hotel’s entrance. A side of me wanted to go inside and ask if room 602 still existed. But what value would there be in seeing a room that looks nothing like it did when we lived there? Instead I turned away and passed the little shop where we used to buy grape juice and oranges.

The Seoul I knew hadn’t really changed. I was glad for that, I thought, as I headed back to my hotel.