About half way up from Yeongtong-dong {영통동} (the neighborhood I live in) you'll come to a leveled off area called Noble County. I've heard that it's a retirement home (silver town) but some of my students have told me about the nice restaurants and swimming there. The whole place is owned by the Samsung Corporation so it could be a combination retirement home/recreation center for Samsung's employees. I took a slight detour on the way down the mountain today to look around the grounds.
On the edge of Noble County is a little farm. The farm has two tiers for growing their crops. With a county as small, densely populated, and mountainous as Korea you grow what you can, where you can. The farm used to have a giant bird cage filled with parakeets, pheasants, and other noisy little things, but the cage has been mostly dismantled.
On up the mountain you can find a few little exercise spots. Koreans are crazy for fitness and you can find exercise equipment in almost every park. At the very top of the mountain is a little stone marker and a metal sign letting you know which city is on which side of the mountain.
I took a picture of my neighborhood on my way home. You can see the paper on the street. Unfortunately littering is a very popular form of advertising in Korea. The towers in the background were not visible from this area when I first moved here in August. Korail is putting in a subway station that will connect to Ori Station {오리역} and I think Suwon Station {수원역}, and the towers are being built to cater to the boom in population and businesses that the new station will bring.
Finally there are some pictures of the crab tanks next door to my apartment. These tanks are very common in Korea and they are filled with all manner of sea life. I'll probably do a photo essay on these tanks some time soon.
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