Yeomnidong Salt Street (염리동 소금길)

Yeomnidong used to be an area habitated by salt merchants (Yeomni actually means Salt Way in Chinese) and this area was signed for redevelopment project by the city government few years ago. A lot of people left, and the village was left with shabby houses, dark and small alleys, and also an increase in crime rate. A project called Crime Prevention through Environmental Design was born and Yeomnidong was their first try. Because the whole area is filled with narrow, tricky alley and very uphill, it is hard for the police officer to locate the position of the victim. The Salt Way is a walking trail about 1.8km long, on which various locations that are likely to be a crime scence are numbered from 1 to 68. They painted each pole in very bright yellow (quite like neon yellow) and it can be seen easily even in the dark. Citizens can tell the officers that they are near Pole Number Something and help will be right on their way.

There are 2 course: course A (yellow line) and course B (blue line)

There are 6 houses scattered in the village as safe keepers. The house gates were painted in yellow color also. They have surveillance cameras as well as emergency button for the victims. Inside each house there is a phone that connect straight to the hotline of police station. As a part of the project, they are trying to make the village a better place for people to live in. Along the track they installed healthy course for daily exercises.   I found this one course really cute. There are yellows lines for you to follow (as you can see in the pictures) As we were following the lines, it suddenly made a turn into a small alley and came out right away. So appearantly they want you to go towards the end of this alley and it is opened to the view of the city and it is aso a place for you to enjoy the fresh atmosphere. If follow this training trail, people can enjoy exercises for all body parts like legs, arms, chests… At the end of the course they can rest in a park. Besides this, at every spots, villagers can enjoy cute wall drawings as well children games.

These human figures can be seen everywhere in the village. They are replacements for the old rusty wire-fences

Villagers have created their own gallery.

Houses are painted colorfully.

In the middle of the journey, you will accidently meet a travel bookstore. Stop For Now. (Instagram) Recently they also opened a community center where everyone (mostly kids) can come and hang out, play guitars, watch movies… It is called Salt Naru (소금나루) I just accidently saw a picture of Salt Street on Instagram and decided to visit here because it is also really close to Sinchon- Idae area. I didn’t know about the project until I’ve reached home. I thought that was such a shabby neighborhood and there were so many old people, and it was only a few meters away from the crowded tourist attacttion Ihwa University. There were really no one there besides us and the villagers, and I was curious why the yellow spots led us to even the most narrow alleys. At first we were lost and couldn’t find Salt Street and I almost gave up but thank god I didn’t (thank you Monica <3)) It is true, the more you go, the more you learn ^^. Sources: Joongangdaily, KoreaHerald How to get here: Idae Station, exit 5. Just keep going straight. Turn left when you see a sign of Mapo Art Center (마포 아트 센터) . Pass the Art Center then turn left, you can see the distinctive yellow sign of the Community Center Salt Naru from afar. Follow Mario~~~