Having now been in Korea for a little over 3 months I think I am now qualified to give my initial impression of my temporary home on this transient adventure. But before I proceed to provide a snapshot I must first qualify it in saying I am not living in just any average area in Seoul, I'm in Gangnam-gu. That's the one and the same Gangnam as featured in Psy's record breaking song parody on the pseudo rich culture of Korea and Gangnam specifically.

So this is the area where stereotypes come in to their own so bear that in mind when considering everything I say. I will be doing my damndest to give a balanced view of Korea during my time here but I have to start somewhere and it's going to have to be what's close to home.

Let's start with guys holding hands, and no I don't mean gay guys which as I  hail from Cape Town I would find perfectly normal. No here it is a little more bizarre as it is straight guys happily strolling down the street hand in hand. To add a subtle twist to this original social idiosyncrasy is that there is often a large age gap, so a middle aged man holding the hand of young man. I'm not sure where the origins lie but apparently its called skinship, non-sexual motivated touching. In a strange way if you can manage to briefly divorce your perspective from the Western culture and conventions it's actually probably a more natural human action considering we are a social animal and most other primates aren't shy to have male on male affection. If you missed what happened there then yes I did just compare you to Monkey!

It took me a considerable amount of time to get my bearings in Gangnam but this is not because I have the directional sense of a gps in an electric storm, my sense of directions is normally pretty good, but rather the fact that each block is just a duplicate of the block that preceded it and the one that will follow it. The buildings around Gangnam station are firstly not the most interesting or distinguishable you will see in Korea, I found the one's I saw in Garosu-gil to be the most architecturally interesting thus far.

But it's more than just the drab building design that makes it repetitive but rather the fact that some big corporates in their infinite wisdom decided it would be in everyone's best interest to have the same chain coffee shops selling expensive, not so great, coffee on every block. This goes so far as to have competitive chain shops across the street from each other or on consecutive floors in the same building.


How they all turn a profit out of this little area still boggles my mind. They are aided slightly by the fact that firstly young people, up to and even over the age of 30, still live at the home so the only place they have to socialise during the day are these coffee shops. This is coupled by the fact that Gangnam is home to probably the highest concentration of adult language institutes in Seoul and as such there are many young people. But even taking these factors in to consideration there are way too many to make sense. There are also way to many Korean barbecue restaurants but I don't want to flood you with too much information at once so this has just become Part 1. I'll save Korean restaurants and deja vu in the subway station for Part 2! Stay tuned to find out more inside info on life in Gangnam.