We're on the Map!

Oh hi! We're at that purple dot on the southern side of the map.

We're on this map anyway! I thought I'd give everyone back at home (and anyone else that's curious) a better idea of life around Cheongju-si, especially in relation to where we live/work. I took a few screenshots of Cheongju, zoomed in to give you a better idea with a few highlights.

Cheongju is a decently sized city. In the map above, we live in Juklim-dong which is approximately where that purple dot is on the southern side of the city. Why purple? Because I happen to like purple, its a nice color. I would consider Cheongju to be a pretty large city, though it's no Daejeon or Seoul by any means. The most recent population numbers I remember seeing on Wikipedia for Cheongju put it around 700k, so it's not what I would call small.

Some people that we've talked to have come to understand part of the difficulty of living "out in the boonies" if you will. We can hop on any number of buses at our bus stop down the road, but you also have to wait for the buses and that can be trying in the cold. We're actually one bus stop away from one of the bus end points/rest areas for the drivers. It's also quite hard to catch a taxi out here too. The bus takes approximately 15 minutes to get from our closest stop to the bus terminal and closer to 45 minutes to get from home to Shinae (Downtown) if things work in your favor.

Riding the bus is kind of an adventure though. Sometimes the bus drivers are crazy, you see interesting people filtering off and on, they drive all crazy sometimes, you just never know. There was the one time where there was a person in a car behind us with major crazy bass going on (we're talking rattling windows here) and all the ajummas (older women) freaked out and the bus driver stopped and gave everyone their money back because they thought it was a problem with the bus.

Here is my other handy dandy map, complete with numbered purple dots. After some consulting with Zach I think I got it all figured out. As I said before, we live in that area in the far south on the map in Juklim-dong (1).

The small square to the north that is not numbered is the approximate region of two small convenience stores we sometimes visit to stock up on snacks and food for the week. The prices are reasonable at these places and we've even become familiar faces to those that work there. 

North of the small square is our second dot, Homeplus (2). This is where we shop for all our needs. Homeplus has pretty much anything and we end up there somewhat frequently. It's also next to the chicken place we like to go to. There for a while we would just walk up the road toward Homeplus and walk on the sidewalk. Then we discovered that we could cut through by going between some apartments and a school and take a bridge above the road and it really saved us some time. This area has several blocks worth of restaurants, cafes, and small shops. There's also a street vendor with delicious waffles.

If you head toward dot number 3 you hit the bus terminal area (3) in Gagyeong-dong. If you take the time to walk to and from there to home down at (1) it's approximately 30 minutes. We've walked it many times and will probably walk it many more. There's a nice park that we started exploring when we first got here, but didn't get the opportunity to look much otherwise. The bus terminal area is also bustling. There's a Lotte Mart, DreamPlus, a bookstore, lots of restaurants, a local street market and many other things. We sometimes hit up this area and go to Pizza Hut for dates! Also near the bus terminal is a fantastic cultural store where I hope to buy gifts to send/bring home and a man who is almost always selling battery powered toy dogs that walk around.

Dot number 4 is up to the northeast. This is Shinae or Downtown (4), which we frequent somewhat often. The spot I marked is just the start of the downtown area as it's quite large. This is the home area of the cat cafe we visited. There are tons of restaurants ranging from KFC and McDonalds to Italian to traditional Korean and more. There are many street vendors here and it's always bustling. Teens, kids, ajummas, you name it you see it all. Near a small video game store we visit sometimes there are typically people out selling their crafts and they're very well done. We also ran into the talent contest thing the one time. And there was the time we saw a small parade of people dressed as clowns that were handing out some sort of flier that we couldn't read. 

Number 5 in the middle area on the map is BCM (5). This is where Zach teaches the adult classes and I've visited the place a few times too. Yet another area we've walked to and from several times before. Taking the bus from home is about 20 minutes and the stop is just after the stop for Chungbuk University (which is huge and we intend to explore soon) but before you hit the huge stadium off to the left. Chungbuk University is that big area just South of the dot. There is a strip near the school for blocks and blocks that is all outdoor wear and hiking gear because Koreans love hiking.

As we discover more I might make a more detailed map (or make the ones above more exciting). Since it's getting cold out I'm not anticipating a whole lot of traveling until springtime, but I'm sure we'll be doing some local exploring.