The Subways of Seoul and Hobby Interest.

Seoul has probably one of the most diverse and expansive subway system's I've ever seen, coming close in line with Tokyo and even New York and Boston. It certainly shows just how small Toronto's subway is for a city that can establish such a long range of locations and easy access through subways with minimal difficulty transferring between lines. 

Today I had decided to check out a number of shops to buy stuff for my modeling gear. Due to some issues with gluing, I need to locate a glue-remover to try and repair the damage done to the figure, and after hopping to blogs of other Expats, I found a few locations to try.

The first is E-mart, a large scale and quite common super-market that sort of follows suit with Wal-Mart or Target in terms of sheer quantity and diversity of materials and produce they sell. Having went to the one very close to me at Jukjeon Station (only a few stops away) I found they had a massive assortment of things, but couldn't find the exact thing I needed. I did however walk away with a nice vacuum, a thermos and a few other nick knacks I've needed for my apartment, but still no glue remover.

The second place I tried is JoyHobby, a hobby store a bit of a ways away at Shindorim Station, having found it on this helpful forum post, I decided to check it out, though I knew it would take some time considering it would be a two hour trip there and back. So after making a Tuna, seaweed and egg yoke sandwich, I was off.

So they run on Windows too?

The trip started from Yapta, taking me down the Yellow (Bundang) Line all the way to the Green Line at Seolleung Transfer station, and from there a straight shot to Sindorim. It wasn't too bad actually the subway ride was smooth, playing some music and majon on my phone as I watched the world of Seoul pass me by. I noticed a few dilapidated buildings on the way, old town-houses long since abandoned, broken windows and exposed insides. I was quite curious, but not too willing to make a detour to a place I had no clue about. Soon enough, I arrived at the station, and making my way through the exit as stated on the website, I found myself staring down the long hallway to to the Techno Mart; the awesomeness had yet to be seen as I walked down the rather prestine stone hallway towards the double doors of the shopping mall.

As you can see, this place is quite packed, and by the looks of it, quite new, if not very ritzy in its design; statues of famous sculpures line the left side of the hallway, dotting a small fountain as water jetted from small lamp-lit holes. I had almost seemed to enter some fantasy world...and then I saw the mall itself.

Electronic CENTRAL!

I don't think I've ever seen so many electronic shops and vendors in my life; it was like I stepped into a whole other district, another side of Korea and quite potentially the coolest place I've seen, but that was just the icing on the cake, the real fun was three floors up, at a little store called Joy Hobby.

The first signs I was nearing my destination was the faint smell of plastic glue, perhaps it was just me, but I swore I caught a wiff of it on the way up before I was met by rows and rows of displays...all housing various models, figures, and then some.

As you can see, this was not any ordinary hobby story, this place was DEEP into it. Yesterday (Friday) I had went to a Forgeiner Bar known as Travelers bar, getting into a conversation about the comics and models scene in Korea, and apparently, its huge.

This of course makes all the more reason when I see rows and rows of figures posed for display. I guess you can say I'm fascinated by these figures, a lot of detail, dedication and patience goes into crafting them, the benefit however of most Japanese/Korean (though most tend to be Japanese) figures and model kits is they often don't require glue and are 'snap-together' models, hence like Gunpla or Gundam Models, it just varies on the complexity of the pieces, the detail and size of the model as well as how many bells and whistles it has, and don't get me started on how massive THAT sort of figure building is, its a following in on itself.

Man figures awaited me, from Gundam  to modern and Second World War fighting vehicles. A few lesser known animes even had their shine as I found several armoured core figures, even purchasing my own from Armoured Core 4. I tend to like the designs of that series a lot more and will have much fun building them in the coming weeks.

 Suffice to say, I spent a good hour there, a trip taking the same amount of time was definitely worth it, and I could easily see myself wanting to return and check out what else the store has. Oh, and as for the glue remover, I was fortunate to find a very good epoxy remover with similar use for getting rid of Loctite, and loctite-like glues off of models.

So, with my day of shopping done, I leave you with probably the biggest model I ever seen, and rightly so, this was something the German Army had built in World War 2, Bloody Artillery train (not actual name.)

The coming week will be my third here in South Korea, I am ready once more to go head long into the breach and teach kids English, many new skills have been learned and are still being perfect, but with my comfort of this new place rising steadily, I can safely say I will be fine here.

Stay tuned readers!