After last week's beach adventure, Christina and I decided to stay in Seoul rather than accompany the boys to Jeju Island. We planned all week to rent bikes and travel along the Hangnang River, but it was wayyyy to wet this weekend for much out door activities. Instead we visited one of the largest shopping districts! The Dongdaemun Market was about 15 subway stops away, which basically means it was a veryyyyy long ride and I played a lot of solitaire on my phone… To be honest, Christina and I didn’t really know what to expect in the least. Neither of us had looked up more after I found the market while searching online and heard it was a good, inexpensive place to shop. What we didn’t realize was that this wasn’t just a “market,” it is a huge collection of pricy department stores, inexpensive malls that alternate product type by floor, and rows and rows of small stores all selling the exact same hats.
After we walked around the area for a bit, I migrated over to the street food vendors. I’ve noticed that there are four or five types of street food that all the vendors sell. The food section is pretty reliable actually, it’s rather nice! Usually, a vendor will sell tteokbokki (traditional Korean rice cake covered in a sweet and spicy sauce), kimbop (Korean Sushi, super delicious! One of my favorite foods here), tokkebi hot dogs (basically corn dogs), and odeng (fish cake stuck on a stick and boiled in broth). I am not a huge fan of overly fishy tasting things, so I bought the tteokbokki. (INSERT PICTURE). On Monday, after our failed trip to E Mart which I will discuss below, I stopped at a vendor and bought some very tasty kimbop!
With some food in our bellies we decided to tackle one of the larger malls. This was clearly some form of “bargain” mall, the floors were divided up by what kind of item they sold. A few floors were dedicated to women’s clothing, one to men’s, one to shoes, one to bags etc. The also had an entire floor for random Korean souvenirs… The walkways between stores were narrow and crowded, and most of the clothing was pretty reasonably priced. Let me put it this way, at this mall it is possible to buy clothing with MUCH better quality, for a lot cheaper than anything I could buy back home in the states. At this rate I may need to buy a second suitcase to bring all my stuff home… luckily there is an entire floor dedicated to suitcases at this mall!!! Haha. Anyway, one of the best things about shopping in Korea is that everything (except pants), is one size fits all. Being the relatively small person that I am, I fit into everything here… I’m sure that if I were six feet tall and two hundred pounds I would be much less happy about buying clothes with out trying them on first – that doesn’t really seem to be a thing here either, you just see something you like, pick it up, walk over to the salesperson, hand them the item, and they grab a brand new but identical item from below the desk all sealed in a plastic bag, and that is the item you take home! It is actually pretty nice to know that you aren’t buying something that that lady over there with the skin condition and unwashed hair sat in in the dressing room for half an hour. Although, not trying on clothes does make buying them a bit of a gamble. It makes me a bit more hesitant before buying, this probably accounts for the fact that you never see Korean people carrying around huge amounts of bags. Everyone here seems to buy one or two items at a time.
On a related note, I also took some pretty big shopping risks… and realized that I can easily buy shorts, pants, and shoes here! A plus that I hadn’t expected due to my German feet. Which actually, apparently aren’t even big in Korean terms. I expected everyone here to wear like a children’s size 5 or something of the equivalent. Thinking back, this weekend was very filled with shopping…
Christina and I happened to run into an American graduate student named Chelsea on our bus ride to eat at the Indian restaurant she recommended, and she suggested that we visit a rather off the beaten path (for tourists such as ourselves at least) market pretty near our house in Sillim. We ended up visiting to buy groceries, and were very surprised! Apparently there is a spot to buy food inexpensively in Seoul! This was the cheapest place that we had visited, and we will definitely be back! I also bought some Costco sized shampoo and conditioners for about ten dollars. It came with two huge shampoos and two conditioners!
Christina and I happened to run into an American graduate student named Chelsea on our bus ride to eat at the Indian restaurant she recommended, and she suggested that we visit a rather off the beaten path (for tourists such as ourselves at least) market pretty near our house in Sillim. We ended up visiting to buy groceries, and were very surprised! Apparently there is a spot to buy food inexpensively in Seoul! This was the cheapest place that we had visited, and we will definitely be back! I also bought some Costco sized shampoo and conditioners for about ten dollars. It came with two huge shampoos and two conditioners!
Although I love Korean food, I do miss the variety of food that I ate back home… Somali, Ethiopian, Turkish etc. So our trip to eat at an authentic Indian restaurant at SNU station was very much welcome! Now, here’s the deal. Chelsea had told us about this place, and its general location… but for the life of us Christina and I couldn’t find Otsal! We saw signs advertising for it everywhere in the area that we believed it to be… but we simply couldn’t find the restaurant. Instead we stumbled across a nice row of “love motels,” and a restaurant called “dos tacos” that we may or may not try… I am not sure how I feel about a Mexican place called “dos tacos.” Needless to say, we did eventually find the restaurant. It was in the basement of an office building, underneath a subway. The food was incredibly good! I miss eating with my hands, I use chopsticks constantly here, and the curry was prime! Although the waiter said it was going to be very spicy, there was literally no spice in the curry. None. It was very disappointing! I know I look like I can’t handle spice, but I really love it! Anyway, this was a much needed weekend at home to shop and relax a bit. Christina and I are trying to figure out how to camp in korea in some of the national parks, I’m not sure if it will happen this weekend but I’ll keep you guys updated! Have a nice rest of the week!