I keep getting flak for my cranky, anti-Hongdae post, written when I was working a couple years ago in a place that made my and my whole life, well...cranky.
I love Hongdae more for the things that is has now, as opposed to some of the things it has lost since I last loved it, back in the mid-1990's.
The clubs are all commercial, although some of them are cool. They weren't like that back in the day, and they certainly didn't ask foreign men to pay double the entry fee. So that stuff was all helping to put me in a bad mood back then.
Anyway, there's several reasons why Hongdae's gone back in my good book, which I won't get into here. Let me just say that they all boil down to the meta-reason of Hongdae being one of the few places in the world where you can get your groove on until the sun comes up, have a cocktail, or oxtail soup and soju anytime you want. There are good looking people, a lot of poseurs, mixed in with some truly unique souls and funky characters.
It's a mixed bag, baby, and I like it. Mikey likes it!
Hehe.
So seriously – I am not as down on the place as that post might lead ya'll to believe. But since I don't like to take down posts, leaving them up there as the closest thing to a diary as I'll ever get, I'll just leave that as a record of a different Metropolitician.
For me, Hongdae means, colors, laughter, movement, sex, drinking, darkness, happiness, danger.
I'm glad I've been able to find a way to realize that again. I guess Hongdae's maturing, diversifying, becoming more difficult to describe as a single entity. I'll just say that it's stupid to "hate Hongdae," since there's no single, monolithic thing to even characterize the place as.
