I just got back from a full day in the Itaewon market district. It was pretty interesting once I got past the occasional smell of the sewer. Lots of shops with all kinds of Korean stuff. Lots of knick knacks. I bought 2 knicks and about 17 knacks. I probably spent too much for the armload of stuff I bought, but hopefully people will like getting something from here. I'm not going to tell you all I picked up. I ran out of cash and have to figure out how to get more. The selection was not what I had hoped, however.
I know Emily wants a "Seatbelt Bag". There were TONS of handbags, but I'm not sure what to get. No one knew what I was talking about when I tried to explain the seatbelt bag thing and, to be honest with you I'm not sure myself. If I only knew what "seatbelt" was in Korean. I'm drawing pictures in the air and wrapping invisible things around my waist. The clerks must have thought I was nuts!
Some photos of shopping in Seoul (sorry they're so small):
Oh, and I ran into two clerks who were laughing at me, saying they had my picture on a tie. Then showed me a Santa Claus tie. I think I'm the only person in Korea with a beard. I wish I could find a camera store. My battery is dead in the useless Minolta I have with me and I really would like to take some pictures of the lights all over the place. The Christmas lights are truly unbelievable.
My package of parts arrived at the airport today and is at Customs, so I think it will be at Samsung on Monday, so I should be able to leave on the 6:30 flight on Monday. OK, tonight I found the Korean equivalent of Buca Di Beppo, the Italian place where the smallest serving serves 27 people. I walked down the hill from the hotel to a Chinese or Korean or Japanese (how the heck would I know) restaurant. No speak English! No speak Korean! So they had pictures of food on the menu with stick figure gibberish underneath. One looked pretty good, with porkish looking meat in the middle of some greens. OK by me.
So I order and when it's ready I pay 20,000 Won and try to leave a tip. No can leave tip. I like this place! So the waitress gives me a bag which weighs approximately 7 to 8 pounds, I'm not exaggerating. Then I trudge up the 15% grade a quarter of a mile hill thinking "I'm going to have to return the ceramic plates to the restaurant in the AM, or maybe the hotel knows to return them for me". Imagine my surprise when I get to my room and open up the bag. Now picture a plate…….no wait! Wait! Wait! Remember the last you washed the car? Picture the bottom half of the bucket. That was what I carried up the hill. A plastic bucket containing a GALLON of soup and nasty green stuff and pretty much the entire spine of a 30 pound pig!
Oh, yeah, no utensils, so I'm eating it by using my ice bucket tongs to pull the meat off the vertebrae and eat it with my fingers. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to with the 6.2 pounds of green stuff, bones and soup I have left over. By eating full time for an hour now, I have managed to lower the level of the bucket o' stuff about 1 ½ inches. Most of that was bones which are now in the plastic bag. Only 4 inches to go! I am NOT kidding!
And you won’t believe this: “My Driver“ had 3 small oranges for me when I got in the cab yesterday. I ate them all and tonight I bought 4 more from a truck outside the restaurant. I’m a changed man!
I think I'm going to stop at the downtown shuttle stop tomorrow and see if I can find a camera and record some of this to share. I guarantee you would be amazed!
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