more seoul

since i am losing steam in posting about korea, i will combine my last two days - well tuesday afternoon until thursday midday when i caught the bus to the airport.

tuesday late afternoon after the dmz we grabbed some food at a local spot - delicious soup/noodle dish, similar to ramen.  we then headed over to namdaemun market which is a local market that sells cheap fashion products, knockoffs, and weird food.  like dried pressed squids weird.  the smell of squid is so gross an so pungent.  we walked around but couldn't take pictures because the locals would yell at us - the five of us were pretty much the only non-locals there!  we tried to take them on the sly, but they didn't come out very well. later that night we hit up the night markets - essentially there is a whole shopping scene at night in seoul.  the building looks like a department store but once you get inside there are row after row and floor after floor of small stalls selling clothing and accessories.  there were so many people inside it was crazy.  the night markets located near dongdaemun opened around 8pm and stayed open until 6am.  not really sure how/why this happens.  we were so overwhelmed by the stuff and the people that we did not stay long.

 

wednesday and thursday were much more low key.  we slept in after early mornings monday and tuesday for kia and dmz.  we went to one of the local coffee shops in seoul.  every 25 feet or so there is a coffee shop (maybe to stay awake from all the shopping?).  seriously every 25 feet - i am NOT joking.  i think there are more starbucks in seoul than in nyc.  there were also coffee bean and tea leafs everywhere which surprised me since it isn't even all over the US.  it was a big deal when coffee bean and tea leaf opened its first store in nyc recently.  in addition to the big chains, there were TONS of local coffee shops as well.  and many of them served belgian waffles - so odd!  there are so many coffee shops, they cant possibly make money.  in addition to coffee, the coffee shop we went to had delicious bread dish.  it was a slightly sweet bread toasted w whip cream and berries on top. yum.

during the day i also walked around gangnam, the area the psy song is based off of.  it was interesting.  nothing too drastic - just more shopping, this time more upscale.  we learned that gangnam, which is south of the han-gang river, was more recently developed.  in fact, it was developed post 1980 and thus is a relatively new part of seoul.

another interesting fact was that to cross some streets you had to go underground through a passageway.  in these passageways there were more stalls with people selling everything from clothes and shoes to handbags and food.  clearly they LOVE shopping.

ok i think this is enough on seoul.