Namdaemun market

All the books and websites say that if you are going to Seoul you should be sure to visit the Itaewan shopping district. Well we did just that today and were terribly disappointed. Itaewan is located near a US millitary base, so everything is overpriced, the food is mostly western, and you hear almost as much English as you do Korean. What's the fun in that?

So we hopped on the subway and traveled a few stops over to the spectacular Namdaemun Market area. It's a labyrinth of pedestrian only aveneues and alleys filled with the most incredible variety of goods. We explored for hours and almost never saw anyone who wasn't Korean. I'm telling you, this is the real Seoul! It's somewhat organized into zones - the clothing area, the gift paper area, the food area, and my favorite, the spice area. There are tables covered with huge bowls mounded high with various types of ground red pepper, storefronts sporting oddly shaped jars of liquid in which various forms of roots are suspended, and baskets full of dried octopus. My favorite was the eel vendor, who had several tanks containing eels of different sizes and species.

We stopped for lunch at a little corner shop that seemed popular, and ordered bulgolgi. The proprietor, a very energetic and assertive woman, sat us down on little plastic chairs and placed a propane burner on the round stainless steel table. Soon we were enjoing a delicious meal of steaming meat and broth served over rice with the usual kimchi side dishes and water in little metal cups. I think the best part of the meal was the people watching we got to do as we ate. People walked by wtih trays on their heads, pushed overloaded hand trucks down the alleyways, and rode through the crowd of pedestrians on delivery motorcyles. The shop acorss the street was doing a brisk buisness in selliing fruit-on-a-stick, so even after stuffing ourselves with bulgolgi, we tried her wares (pineapple, mellon, etc.) and finally settled on kiwi-n-a-stick.

I have to say that so far, this trip was best cultural experience yet. Be assured that when you come to visit us in South Korea, we are taking you to Namdaemun Market!