Special Delivery

It's kimchi pickling season. It's a messy job. And it takes a lot of hard work to pickle enough kimchi to last an entire winter. Luckily for us, my mom's friend in Busan (known to have some of the best kimchi in Korea) was thoughtful enough to send some of her batch northwards.

In 1983, I was two years old and living in a three story apartment building in Los Angeles. Twenty five years later and 5,965 miles from L.A, Jeff and I are occupants on the third floor of this 25 years old building in Gwa Cheon City, Korea.


Building 624 and Apartment Complex Number 6 is representative of the common style of architecture built during Seoul's rapid growth period of the 1980s.

GwaCheon City

Gwa Cheon historical origins goes back to 437 AD. Gwa Cheon City was founded in the early 1980's to support the newly built Seoul Governmental Complex. The adjoining apartment complexes and parks were built to facilitate and house a population of civil servants, academics and their families. Taxi drivers and pedestrians have proudly told me that GwaCheon is an"Education City"

There are plenty of modern super markets in town center but the quality and price of lotus roots are best at the traditional outdoor markets.

Our Park:

Jogger's Knee friendly running path:


Our local library:

What you would of seen if you went on a walk with me

Small plazas are usually found in the middle of every apartment complex. In GwaCheon there are ten complexes, or Danji. Our Danji plaza has a dry cleaner, super market, health food store, tailor, barber, butcher and even an Amway retailer.

6But not all danjis are created equal, not all have bathhouses like danji number 6. It has been determined that the women's side is most busy in the mornings and the men's side in the evenings. The symbol on the top of the chimney is the sign for bathhouses in both Korea and Japan. Before my sister knew how to read Korean, she thought that this symbol stood for dumplings and wondered why there were so many dumpling factories in Korea.

This park is always full on weekends and afternoons.
But at this time of the day, kids are done with school and on their way to after school schools.
The girl in the photo had her orthodontic gear match the color scheme of the playground.

Learning English is a national obsession

Crocs haven't broken through the Korean trend cycles, not yet anyway.

School Children snacking on spicy rice cakes and sausages at a Boonshik snack shops before heading off to after school schools called HaGwons.

I'm reconsidering my options for Grad School


Swinging good stationary time.


Next door to our building is a kindergarten . During the day you can hear piano singalongs and giggles resonate off the walls of the schools empty pool.

I've been fantasizing about rescuing all the sea creatures from fresh seafood restaurant tanks and releasing them in the kindergarten pool.