Explore Your Hood

It's easy to fall into a pattern of complacency. Go to work, walk the dog, take out the trash etc. But I find that when I mix things up - step out of the mundanities of everyday life and follow my curiosities - that's when my surroundings really come to life.

Today's random neighborhood adventure led me and my friend Tom to a part of our beloved, adopted Korean city of Bucheon, that we had only heard about as somewhat of a tall-tale. We heard there was a foreigner neighborhood within our own town full of Thais, Filipinos, Indians, and other people from Southeast Asia. With this, there were promises of great food, so we went searching.

Now Bucheon is a rather large suburban area of the greater Seoul Metro Area but it has its own municipality, so its a proper city in its own right. Quite simply, Bucheon is fantastic place to live with everything a young adventurous guy could want: restaurants, shopping, hills to hike, parks, well-paved roads and public transportation. Anytime I would spend the day in the hustle and bustle of Seoul, coming home to Bucheon at the end of the day always felt good. Anyhow, when Tom and I learned of the prospect for Thai food in our town, we went on a long walk in search of it. Many steps and a few wrong turns later, we arrived at what could only be described as a hidden foreign town. I mean, this market-filled area was definitely not on any main roads and it was tucked way back in the innards of an otherwise unassuming neighborhood.

Thai food in Bucheon at last. And Indian. Oh, and did I mention Vietnamese too? This place kind of had it all, and we loved it. As it would turn out, this neighborhood would become a go-to for me for years to come when I needed to buy cilantro or other rare spices, otherwise foreign to Koreans in general. I would hop on my 1997 Yamaha XJR400 and zip down to our little secret foreign neighborhood. The sound from my tailpipe would ricochet off the walls of the buildings lining the alley, and the vendors with whom I had grown friendly with, could hear me coming from a mile away. It was great to be greeted with predictive smiles as I dismounted the bike in search of curry powder or coriander.

For anyone who may have read this, you might have noticed the apparently crazy switch in tenses from the present to the perfect past. That's because the first two paragraphs were written back in 2013 and the blog post was never finished. I am only now, in August of 2016, from my home desk in Riyadh, finishing this post, thus I am reminiscing for the latter part of the post in the past tense. My days in Korea were some of the very best I've ever had, and writing about it like this makes me think I should dedicate at least a few more memories to be written as blog posts in the future. Thanks for taking a few moments to picture with me what Korean life was like.