I have been trying to find an army surplus store. You’d think there’d be one, what with all the military around; and I did pass one once but I’ve since forgotten where it was. I asked on the newsgroup for expats in Korea, and some guy replied that there was one across the street from Yongsan train station. Dave was having meetings all day at Yongsan Electronics Market, which is connected to the train station, so I asked him if he’d help me look for the store if I met him for lunch. He said he would.

The area east of Yongsan station is an area I’ve visited often. Just one block from the train station is a subway line that runs underneath the road where the USO is and where there is some good black-market shopping. The road is called Hangang-no and is one of the major thoroughfares in the city, connecting downtown to the river and beyond. But neighborhood around Yongsan station itself I have not explored on foot. Coming up out of the subway, walking the block west toward the train station, I felt like I had stepped back to the 1950’s. I’ve seen a lot of photos of the war and post-war periods, the architecture prevalent then, and the street along which I was walking looked unchanged from that time, as if it had survived the war miraculously intact and had not seen a need to modernize since. I liked it.

There is a small Korean army camp adjacent to the station and in front of it I saw for the very first time a Korean woman in BDU’s, standing erect like a soldier too accustomed to standing at attention. Her face was perfectly made-up. I stared at her.

I met Dave and we walked immediately across the street to an army supply store, but it only sold new things. In fact, there were many such stores but none sold used stuff. We bagged the whole trip and concluded that the guy who gave me the tip had misunderstood what I meant. Probably that was the case. Dave still had some time, so we started making our way toward the main road under which the subway line runs. We were headed there for any of the numerous coffee shops we were sure to find.

Along the way we passed a peculiar-looking street. Every storefront along the entire block boasted the same bright-red awning. The street itself was deserted and wet from all the rain that has been falling these last two days. The water poured from the red corners. It was too bizarre to pass up, so we turned to take a look.

"Omigod, it’s a red light district!" Dave blurts out before I can even see the women sitting behind the glass windows below the red awnings.

I’ve heard about them - little ones all over the city, they say, but I’ve never seen one. I started laughing, trying hard not to but I was suddenly embarrassed to be there and couldn't help it. I wanted to get a good look at the women sitting in the windows but… I couldn’t. I gazed at everything but them. I was really uncomfortable. I noticed that they sat on little stools just behind sliding glass doors. They were in little rooms that ran the width of the "shop" but were only about 2 or 3 feet deep. The rooms were empty but for the stool, a woman, and - for some odd reason, maybe the time of day? - cleaning supplies. The walls and floors were completely tiled like a bathroom; indeed it was bathroom tile. There were faucets poking out of the wall. These little "shops" stacked one beside the other for one whole block; each looked exactly like the other with variations only in tile color.

That’s what I remember.

What I can recall about the women is that they were dressed in skimpy clothing (but not as skimpy as their counterparts on the streets in the US), wearing high platform shoes. Only one was standing while the rest sat on their stools slouching. Slow time of day, I spose.