Places we've been recently...

This month has been pretty crazy with Halloween preparations and just general work stuff. Last weekend Elly was kind enough to take Matt, Jon and I to Insadong (Korean traditional area) and we bought some neat stuff for gifts. We also stopped at this massive bookstore and were able to look at *English* books. Oh the novelty! And I cried a little as I saw a bunch of Psychology textbooks (similar to those I bought in university) for so cheap. Like books I would have paid over $100 for being sold for $40. While in Insadong we had some delicious tea at a traditional tea house. I had cold pomegrante tea and it was really yummy.


Yesterday Matt and I ventured to Yongsan Electronics Market. It was a neat place to go but I don't know if I would go back unless there was something specific I was looking for and I had a Korean person with me to haggle. It literally was 7 massive floors filled with every kind of electronic you can imagine. Way too much shiney for me to handle. Then we carried on to Namdaemun, which is an area similar to Dongdaemun. I bought a neat skirt that actually fit me (I can't believe I found some kind of clothing here) and Matt bought jeans which turned out to be too small. We bought some other stuff and then I got a raging case of homesickness. At this point we ducked into Outback Steakhouse and I pretended I wasn't in Korea but was back in Canada. It was nice having an all English menu and I got over my mini crisis. Then we were sucked into this glasses place and I ended up buying a new pair of prescription glasses. Yes, you read that correctly. My glasses from Canada cost about $450 and these glasses cost me about $100 and they made them in 10 minutes. It's the most amazing thing and I may get another pair sometime before I leave. I like having options and with them being that price you can actually afford to change your look every so often. These are similar to the ones I have but a nice chocolate brown with cool silver chrome on the sides. Don't mind the picture, I took it myself and had just rolled out of bed.


Yongsan Electronics Market








Namdaemun






Lots of Ginseng.
More pictures here.

New Glasses!!!


Oh and when we were at Yongsan Market we happened upon this basketball trick/streetball demonstration. They called themselves "HipHoop" and it was quite entertaining, not only watching the cool tricks but also seeing the old ladies in the audience bob their heads along to some pretty explicit rap music. Of course, they probably had no idea what the music was about. It was also really funny when the basketball players screamed out random English phrases (usually filled with garbled swear words) and a few "yeah yeahs" for good measure. Good times were had by all.