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www.groovekorea.com / August 2014 82 Easy living in ilsan Story by Dave Hazzan / Photos by Ida Marie Skeie Edited by Jenny Na (jenny@groovekorea.com) COmmuNITy Ilsan, 1993: “There was nothing,” says Mark Gomez, a 46-year-old British hagwon owner. “I rented a house in Daehwa-dong; it was the only house. The roads were there, but it was just empty lots as far as you could see. There was nothing clear to the Han River.” Ilsan, 2014: “We have everything here, absolutely everything,” says Dairin Frawley, a 35-year-old teacher from Ireland. “My friends who live in Seoul, if they need to (do anything) they have to travel.” Not so here. O ne of the fastest-growing areas in Korea, Ilsan is split into two districts, east and west, in the city of Goyang. Twenty kilometers north of Seoul, it is dense with housing, shopping, vegetation and foreign- ers. In the ‘90s and early 2000s, both of Go- mez’s kids were born in Ilsan. When they got to school, they were the only foreigners in the whole system. “I took (my daughter) on the first day, and the principal came out, shook my hand and gave me flowers,” Gomez says. The father was worried about bullying, but soon found there was “a certain cachet” with having one of his children for a friend, so they ended up quite popular. Newfoundlander Shawn Morrissey ar- rived in December 2000. “I could go two or three days and not see another foreigner,” Morrissey says. “Now you can’t walk down the street and not see one.” ExpAT ENCLAvES