Namyangju City

After arriving at the Incheon airport, my co-teacher drove me through Seoul rush hour traffic to Namyangju-City, which is about 30 minutes northeast of Seoul. My co-teacher said that the Korean government built the city to alleviate overcrowding in Seoul, as with other cities that started booming when the subway system connected them to the capital. He grew up in Seoul himself but said he could no longer afford housing and "bad air." Everywhere you look in Namyangju there are towering apartment buildings--it seems that everything is in a high rise here. There are mostly young families living here, and the population of 450,000 is spread out in different districts.


I've seen several churches already. Some have large red flourescent crosses sticking up--but those may be hospitals...I'll have to figure that one out.



Kimbap Chungguk, which provides most all my meals, has become my new best friend. It's like McDonald's in that it's dirt-cheap and ubiquitous in Korea, but unlike McD's in that the food is actually fresh and delicious. Kimbap, I've learned, means rice wrapped in seaweed (kim=seaweed, bap=rice).

I spy another Kimbap! Do you?

I've visited E-Mart several times. It's like a Walmart, and is always extremely crowded. There is literally a salesperson in every aisle, and others hawking free samples and yelling at customers. It too has many floors, with flat escalators for wheeling carts up and down. You have to lock up your bag before going in, and they even have lockers for dogs! Today I saw a poor little schi tzu in one and was tempted to break it out.

Have you no shame, Pizza Hut?