Korea 2011: In and around Amsa

Besides going to the market, we also walked around the neighbourhood.  What was immensely refreshing is that there simply is no crime to speak of.  It was an absolute pleasure to saunter through the streets of Amsa quite late at night with my camera nonchalantly slung around my neck, and to know that no one would opportunistically rip it off!

Here are some pictures that I took of the neighbourhood as we wandered around:

I spotted this cute little mode of transport outside a 'cafe'

A Heineken sign in a bar

A fire hydrant

There are fire hydrants EVERYWHERE.  Loads of what goes on in Korea runs off gas.  There are little street cafes absolutely everywhere.  Most of them run off gas.  What is very interesting is that although these arrangements look fairly fragile, there are very few gas or electricity accidents.  True to form, the infrastructure caters for the unlikely event that there should be such an accident.

Entry to a Karaoke room

 There are Karaoke rooms everywhere, mostly in basements.  There are also PC rooms everywhere.  One pays a small amount to rent these rooms by the hour - about R6.  The fundamental reason is that Korea, and particularly Seoul is very densely populated.  People live in high rise apartment blocks mainly.  These apartments are small.  Living room is therefore shared outside of the private living space.  This makes so much sense to me.  Here in the West, each of us has to have our own lounge, our own kitchen, our own washing machine, our own hifi, our own... our own... our own....  In Korea all of these things are shared.  Cafes are everywhere and meals are relatively cheap.  Living spaces are everywhere and rental is relatively cheap.  This means that families can share sleeping space, and can choose to rent rooms that cater to whatever activity they choose to do in the evenings.  It also means that couples have places that they can rent to watch movies that they choose to watch, rather than go to the local cinema and watch whatever happens to be showing there at the time.  There is simply so much choice in living like this.  Not only that, it encourages entrepreneurs.  People can make a reasonable living out of renting space which has been designed and decorated to meet a social need.

Another Karaoke room

A love motel

 This concept amused me very much.  There is a proliferation of motels all over Korea.  The rooms in these motels can be rented by the hour, catering to people that are not married and would like to indulge in intimacy.

Driveway entry to a motel

All the motel driveways have these little curtains so that people who choose to go there can enter discretely without being seen.

A parking garage

Space in Korea is at a premium.  This is an extremely well thought out concept.  One drives ones car onto a platform or 'car lift'.  The car is then lifted to one of the floors, or dropped to a floor below ground level where it is parked or stacked for later retrieval.  I can think of quite a lot of office complexes in and around Cape Town, and other cities in South Africa where this kind of arrangement would work exceedingly well.