Shopping in Seoul

So my coworker Erik and I finally drove to Seoul last weekend. With the US dollar getting stronger against the Korean Won I wanted to shop for a camera lens, and all the internet opinions I found were positive for the Yesdica camera store in the Namdaemun market in Seoul. Finding an address on the internet for Yesdica proved difficult, at least an address in English, but the Namdaemun gate in Seoul is Korea's cultural treasure #1, is shown on all the tourist maps, and the market is in the same neighborhood. If you remember back to the news last January it's the old city gate that caught fire, it was the oldest wooden structure in the country. When we drove past it the entire gate was hidden from view, covered with scaffolding and boarded up while they're doing repairs.

I had been avoiding driving to Seoul because of the horror stories I've heard about the traffic and the crowds, but neither were any worse than I'd expect in Los Angeles or San Francisco on a Saturday afternoon. We left Anseong about 11:00am and drove North on highway 1 toward Seoul, stopping only once at a rest area to fill the rental car with LPG and get a quick snack. I again passed on the fresh grilled squid and got 'ham toast' instead -- basically it's a grilled sandwich on spongy white bread with a slice of ham, a patty made with egg, cheese and rice, squirted with ketchup and sprinkled with sugar. It was tasty in a strange way... too many flavors that I didn't think would work together.

Just past the highway toll booth on the outskirts of Seoul there was road construction and a chain-reaction accident involving many cars and a couple of buses that added probably an hour to our drive -- other than that it was full speed (100 km/h) most of the way. In Seoul the traffic was heavy but nothing oppressive. We did take an unintentional scenic route over a mountain outside of Seoul instead of taking the tunnel through the mountain -- I keep telling people I have a GPS because I need one, not because I want one. I had entered coordinates of the Namdaemun market, picked off of Google earth prior to leaving for Seoul, so my GPS had a good idea of where the market is. The coordinates were close enough that Erik spotted the store as I was following the arrow on the GPS. Parking wasn't a problem either, I parked on a side street half a block across the street from the store and it was a short walk to Yesdica.

Instead of crosswalks there are stairs down to an underground mall to get across the street. The stores in the mall, both underground and at street level, are almost all very specialized in their merchandise, like the necktie store, or the artsy-paper store. Also unusual were how the stores were clustered together: all the stores with clocks and watches were next to each other, as were the stores selling only cameras, or scarves, purses, swimsuits, ginseng, hats, jewelery, etc. It's a very different method of merchandising than in the US, and it's quite convenient to shop at stores next to each other for the best price, or the perfect tie.


Also unusual were the vendors selling things on the stairways leading to the underground mall. The green strips on the stairs are glow in the dark markers, perhaps the vendors have flashlights on hand to help evacuate in case of power failure?

There was even a lady selling fried silkworms, but I was too timid to try one.

What I did bring home are more pictures, some Korean souvenirs, and another camera lens.

The weather over the weekend was sunny and warm, not hot or humid, and perfect for a road trip. This week we had a couple of days of rain but the forecast for next weekend is sunny and warm, so perhaps I can find more stone pagodas!

Jerry