The bright lights and tall towers of Bundang

I’ve spent the past two weeks in the neighbourhood of Bundang in the city of Seongnam, South Korea. (My business here is not Spacing-related — I’m teaching at a two-week summer English camp, then off for a four-day visit of Seoul, then flying to Taiwan for a four-day visit of Taipei.) We’ve been referring to Seongnam as the Misissauga of Seoul. You can take an express bus to the capital city in about half an hour; it’s mostly residential here, and the malls and plazas are plenty.

We’ve been spending a lot of our little free time in Samsung Plaza, a big fancy indoor shopping mall with pedestrian plazas on either side. The outdoor plazas are flanked by five storey buildings packed full of restaurants, bars, and shops and covered in colourful flashy lights. During the day, the outdoor plaza is relatively empty, I’m guessing because it’s so hot people prefer to stay inside. At night it’s packed with twenty-somethings on dates or looking for dates, and outdoor vendors selling everything from knick-knacks, to towels and underwear, to jewelry. You’re never far from a free washroom, outdoor food cart, or Baskin Robbins.

Instead of sandwich boards, they have these inflatable, lit-up wiener-shaped ads — most of which, I’m pretty sure (I can’t read Korean), are ads for bars and restaurants on the upper floors.

The other night we were looking for a place to get a drink after work and ended up buying some Soju for a couple bucks at a Family Mart and sitting out in the middle of the plaza at plastic tables as people walked by. It was so nice to not be roped in.

Walking through the plaza it’s easy to forget about the busy highways that surround the whole place. They’re constantly packed with cars and take forever to cross. My guide book says riding a bike in urban areas in Korea means almost certain death. The only bikes I’ve seen on the streets here come with motors.

Bundang is home to forests of highrise apartment buildings and condos, none of which will ever win any awards for great architecture. They’re basically tall bland concrete buildings with large numbers on the side so you can tell them apart, even from the highway. When I first saw them, they reminded me of St. Jamestown. I later learned that they’re where most well-off people live. A lot of rich people live in Bundang because there’s lots of green space and parks (so I’ve heard). Walking through the high rises one evening, I realized they were quite different than anywhere in Toronto. There was a huge water fountain in the middle of them all. All around that were tons of kids riding bikes and playing with their mothers. These upscale apartments here seem to house many families, not just upwardly mobile singles and couples. I expected to feel overwhelmed by the towers. Instead, I felt happy — I wasn’t in the middle of some sort of bland suburbia, I was somewhere worth spending time in. Also, kids smile and wave hello to almost everyone. The towers stand along a river that has bike and running paths and green space along either side. There were lots of cyclists and rollerbladers out for leisurely rides here.

Another thing I’ve noticed, both here and elsewhere in Korea, is that they seem to fit farm fields wherever they can put them. It’s not uncommon to see businesses (such as this car dealership) with vegetable gardens crammed up next to them. They’re grown right up to the curb on the street with only a row of corn as fencing.

One evening when we were coming home by taxi, there was a haze of smoke in the air up the road to the school where we work. We assumed a building had caught on fire. Turns out it was pesticides they spray every now and then to kill bugs. We had to wait for the smoke to pass before getting out of the cab.

Next: Seoul