The Ch’eat Sheet: 7 Korean Dishes You (Maybe) Haven’t Tried, But Should
For a small peninsular nation, Korea’s cuisine is exceedingly diverse. This list is not dedicated to the super-obscure daring street foods, nor the stuff of Korean food 101, but to tasty traditional dishes that skate just under the regular radar. One in Korea cannot live on galbi and kimbab alone. A common thread among these...
On Seoul’s Guryong Slum and Pushing Poverty Under the Carpet
After the 1960s, a rapid increase in Seoul’s urban population led to inflated prices and a shortage of affordable housing in the city. A large number of slum settlements developed and in 1988 Guryong panjachon (a wooden board house) was created by residents who had been pushed out of their inner-city slums by the government...
Seoul’s Secret Garden
[portfolio_slideshow id=18109] I first visited Changdeokgung Palace on a blustery day in the fall when the afternoon light was harsh and slanted and leaves covered the ground. They filled the curved roofs of pagodas in fluffy piles and littered the surface of lotus ponds in such a way that suggested the grounds had suffered years...
5 Korean Foods for Adventurous Eaters
Restaurant search apps tend to favor quantity over quality. Most mine the web to produce general results vouched for by random strangers who think Kimbap Heaven actually lives up to its name. The MangoPlate team set out to create a better restaurant app that’s not just a directory, but a useful tool that makes restaurant...
The Drunken Poets Lying Around Itaewon
Seoul-based creative Andy Knowlton’s current project ‘The Drunken Poets’ is a quirky take on poetry and art. The American multi-media artist searches for materials on the street – trash, basically – and turns the items into unusual-looking dolls which he then attaches a small bottle to. Within that bottle he places a poem and leaves...
Street Art and Steel Factories in Mullae, Seoul’s Art Village
To many, Seoul is a city that is stark and clean. Cloned, white high-rise apartment buildings are replacing old, demolished houses, and graffiti and street art is rare. Some neighborhoods have yet to be redeveloped, such as my neighborhood in northeast Seoul, comprised of 1970s style houses with kimchi pots and gardens on rooftops. Others are slowly being converted,...
Seoul’s Moving Metal Staircases
Anyone who has ever played Super Mario Brothers knows that taking any one of the many secret “pipelines” is usually a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you find yourself in a brand new subterranean eco-system, filled with potential riches and the promise of advancing a great distance toward your ultimate goal of completing the...
Bbang in Hongdae
There’s no dearth of music venues in Hongdae. On any given night, there are hundreds of gigs taking place in the brightly lit, super-hip space between Hapjeong and Sinchon. To catch live music in Hongdae, you needn’t even cross a single threshold, with buskers occupying virtually every street corner or open space. Hongdae is Seoul’s...
