Visions from the Rooftop

Before I get into this post, I wanna make sure everyone knows that the recent disasters in Japan have not reached Korea. A lot of people have asked me if I'm ok, or what people are saying about Japan over here. I can't tell you what most people say, because I don't speak Korean. For that same reason, I don't really watch the news. But I know that for the most part, we're safe...aside from that constant fear of impending war. But I try not to think about that too much.

Anyways, I decided to showcase a bit of scenery and describe my location in this post. Most of the interesting stuff that happens to me occurs in Seoul, but Ilsan isn't awful. When it's warm outside, one of my favorite pastimes is taking my iPod to the roof of my apartment building and just zoning out. A well furnished rooftop is a great place to hang out on a sunny day.



This is the roof of the building where I work. Consequently it's only a block away from my apartment building, which is so very convenient. Most of the time you'll run into people from the other businesses in the building, having a smoke. Our building has seven floors: restaurants on the bottom, then a photographer studio, Christian bookstore, Yamaha music store, TaeKwonDo class, and a medical lab for the nearby hospital takes up the top floors (there's some kind of dark humor to be had when you see how many doctors smoke cigarettes). My school shares two floors with the bookstore and the music store.



You may notice the vast intersections we must traverse to simply cross the street. It's kind of crazy to try and fly across the street before the light changes. There's like eight lanes with a bus lane in the middle. It's only a little bit dangerous though. The cool thing about this intersection, though, is that there is an electronics store on three of the four corners. Samsung store on one, LG store on another, and a 4-floor mega-store called ETLand right across the street from my school building. That really comes in handy when you're in need of an HDMI cable or a surge protector.



The thing I don't like is the architecture of the apartment buildings. This tower block format on all these buildings is incredibly bland. But on the opposite side, there's some pretty cool architecture in some of the hotels behind my apartment building. One even has a Taj Mahal vibe.



However, I have been led to believe that many of these reputable establishments are actually of ill repute. They may be...Love Motels.

Yes. That's exactly what you think it means.

If that's still not clear enough for you, it works like this: some business men use these hotels for illicit dealings with women of a certain profession (I said that in the most eloquent way I could). It's convenient for them because they may rent these rooms in 4-hour intervals.

Now, before you start saying, "How do you know all this, Anthony?" firstly, shame on you for thinking so foul of me. If I'm gonna go do that, I'll at least leave my own neighborhood. Secondly, you can blame this bit of education on my colleague, Cryn Johannsen. She told me a story about one of her friends staying in one of these hotels and having a not-so-pleasant experience.



All in all, it's not a bad place to live. Not many young people live around here so there's pretty much no nightlife. But there's good Korean restaurants, a few bars, and coffeshops aplenty. It's usually pretty quiet, minus the constant roar of buses storming by. And just like anywhere else in Korea, you will see random drunk Korean men ambling their way down the street at night. Sometimes I watch them for fun. It's like watching a baby who's learning to walk hahaha.

Peace