Koreans don’t seem to have figured out how to hyphenate their own place names when translating them to English. Sure, you run into the occasional problem with spelling in a translation; “gwang” vs. “guang” is a good example, though they might actually be separate words in that example. On the subway train here – Seoul’s Line 5, the longest underground rail line in the world, I hear – the area we’re in is spelled Omokgyo while on other signage, Ohmokgyo.
Ohm-ok-g Yo?
Hyphenation is a whole other area that, one might think, would be easier to sort out. So far, that doesn’t seem to be any clearer. Our hotel’s website spells the name of this Co-Op Residence location as “Oh-mok Gyo” in the title of the page, while graphics and references on the pages themselves refer to the spelling as “Ohmok-Gyo”.
Spelling aside, our new, third hotel is actually fairly nice. It’s a 740 room “Co-Op Residence” as the name implies, consisting of small rooms like our own, larger rooms also intended for short to medium stays, as well as extended-stay suites. Each room comes with furnishings and kitchenware, including our own basic one. The furnishings, to be honest, are crap, but hey, we’re paying the equivalent of $40 a night and can actually sleep. Can’t bitch that much.
Not Pictured: Zoning Laws
The above picture was taken from the nearby balcony, looking toward the subway station we use to travel throughout Seoul. The long building in the lower left is some kind of machine shop, and right at the corner where our subway station lies, is a junkyard. Not only that, but a junkyard with one wall knocked partially out to make room for a food stall. It looks about as appetizing as it sounds.
1233 - Bland Incarnate
Though our room on the 12th floor might be fairly unassuming from the hallway, allow me to assure you that there are still intriguing bits in the picture above. At least, if you’re a construction and architecture nerd to any degree. The door handle? RFID based, so you simply slap a card against it to unlock. Fairly standard. The little steel door on the lower left? Access to the plumbing systems for the small bathroom. Efficient. The white box to the right of the door? Intercom. Yawn. The white box to the left? Power meter. Ya… wait, what?
Yes, each room in this building has its own electrical power meter, telling you how many kilowatt hours have been run through the apartment since it was last reset. I haven’t seen anything in the paperwork telling me what this information is used for, or why they didn’t just centrally monitor it from the office. Maybe it’s a shame thing?
Sadly, we don’t have enough electronic gear with us to send the digits flying nearly as impressively as we’d like.
Hooray Hall Noise!
That door beyond the elevators? Yep, that’s our room. We hear a lot of crying children fading into the distance as the elevator sinks to the lower floors.
While I wait for more pictures to finish uploading so I can work on more posts, here’s a puppy for sale at E-Mart, Korea’s answer to Sam Walton’s brainchild.
Just Like a Puppy. Only Korean.