Ihwa-dong, one of Seoul’s oldest neighborhoods, was once a place of renown. Aristocrats would come visit to take in the splendid scenery. After the Korean War the village became home to squatting refugees, building homes wherever they could and in the late 1950s a National Housing Complex was built. Many of the residents worked in the nearby garment and textile industries but as other neighborhoods prospered in the 80’s and 90’s with high-rise apartment towers, residents started moving away draining the neighborhood’s vitality. Ihwa-dong became a decaying suburb designated for demolition, home to mostly poor families and the elderly.
A multi-year campaign built by the Earth Day Network is to End Plastic Pollution. For Earth Day, Ellanor C. Lawrence Park hosted an afternoon of walks, talks and games to teach us how plastics impact our environment. 
His first season of basketball he had never attempted to dribble a ball until the first practice. From chucking the ball when his dribbling skills slowed him down to going after every rebound and passing to his teammates his growth is a testament to the patience and diligence of his coaches and his tenacity. 
The most intuitive of numbers, eleven, also symbolizes disorder, extravagance and rebellion. It comes after the wholeness of ten, a decade of childhood complete, but before twelve, the beginning of angst and separation. At eleven I can still kiss you on the lips, hug you in front of your friends and be the source of your truth. You laugh at my jokes, you patiently explain video games, anime and hip hop songs and you accept my reasoning and explanations for why things have to be my way. A golden time, I realize, soon enough I will be challenged to vie for relevance and coolness.
