Cheonan-Asan: The Future of Korea

Korea experienced a huge period of growth in roughly the last third of the 20th century, especially in the 1990's, and Cheonan is essentially a big symbol of that growth. The whole sprawl of the majority of the city looks like it was built in the 80's or 90's and I suspect that the long-standing central business district areas sort of near Cheonan Station (the regular train station serving the city) and the huge Shinsegae department store complex (with the big intercity bus terminal below) that I visited last weekend probably date from the 1990's. While those areas are clearly still very hip and busy, I definitely got the impression that a lot of development in the city is focused on the western edge of town, so I took a hike out there today to see what there is to see.

Most obvious is this, the tallest building in Cheonan, probably twice as tall as any other building in the city. The building is a massive, monolithic thing that doesn't exactly dominate the skyline simply because it's essentially at the very edge of the city, with undeveloped land and farms separating it from the neighboring city of Asan. I'm not sure if it's mainly apartments or offices but it's pretty impressive.

The bottom five floors (plus two below ground) contain an E-Mart (which is basically Korean Wal-Mart), a huge outlet mall, a food court, restaurants and a movie theater. You can enjoy the fine dining experience of a fancy Korean Dunkin' Donuts:

If you're more interested in local Korean coffee places, they've got the most metal coffee shop in the history of the world, as well:

Or if you're hungrier than that, they've got a Popeye's (?!?!?!!!!) right across from it (there was also an Outback Steakhouse that I didn't get a picture of because the hostess was staring at me like I was some kinda weirdo, hah):

There were a good number of people shopping but it's clear that this whole area is brand-spanking new; there was very little road traffic, the crosswalk signals weren't even turned on yet, etc. It's all clearly gearing up in anticipation of huge growth in the region, though. Right across the tracks from this building is The Galleria, which offers nine levels of high-end shopping.

The interior of this building is awesome, as the whole center of it is this big open cavernous space surrounded by shopping of all sorts. From the bottom, up:

From the top, down:

On the very top of The Galleria, above the art galleries in the Cultural Center that makes up the top floor, is a rooftop garden. From here I got an excellent view of the Cheonan-Asan KTX station. This high-speed rail station offers a $12.50 trip to Seoul that runs you 35 minutes at 200 mph. All of this infrastructure and development seems to be the result of expectations that new Samsung factories and offices in Asan (which is much smaller than Cheonan) will inject jobs and money into the local economy, likely bridging the gap between the two cities as developers take advantage of the relatively cheap land and excellent location. I could see tons of construction equipment flattening the land between this end of town and Asan to the west in preparation for this growth around the KTX station.

I wandered over to the station to scope it out. Sorry, Korail: I ignored your "We trust you! Only paid ticket holders beyond this point" signage to get a closer look at these awesome trains. I can't wait to start using these things to zip around the country once paychecks start coming in.

Despite how much I like the laid-back, simple living that characterizes Cheonan, I've gotta say all of this development is pretty exciting stuff.