Day 11: Dongdaemun
I can’t believe I am at the half way point of writing about my trip. T.T . When I finish I will be sad to close this chapter but also happy to see what the future will have in store. I still have 10 days left to write about but with the frequency in which I’ve been posting lately, I’ll probably be on my next trip before I finish! Dah.
I didn’t feel like doing too much on this day that involved a lot of travelling between large distances so I decided to head to Dongdaemun to check out the department stores and markets that were located in the area. I didn’t take many pictures on this day and that’s usually an indication that nothing really caught my interest or I was doing something, like shopping, that didn’t call for pictures to be taken. On this day, I think it was a bit of both.
I arrived in the Dongdaemun area by getting off the subway at Dongdaemun History Station. If you are looking for soccer jerseys, there is an underground shopping alley connected to the station lined with small shops side-by-side selling nothing but jerseys. You can find all kinds of replica and authentic jerseys from the Korean National Team to Euro club teams. They also did name and number pressing and I was tempted to get a Park Ji-Sung printed jersey for my brother and then return the plain one I already bought at the Nike store earlier. The lettering they used however looked like it would eventually crack after repeated washes so I decided it was better to keep my blank jersey instead.
While there seemed to be numerous department stores in the Dongdaemun area, they definitely had a different vibe to them when compared to Lotte or Shinsegae. When I think of Lotte and Shinsegae, I think high-end, elegant, and fancy. When I think of the department stores in Dongdaemun (the main ones being Doota and Migliore), I think more younger, trendy and hip. That’s not to say that the items at Doota were any cheaper than Lotte. Both Doota and Migliore seemed to carry less mainstream items and more from the local or Korean designers scene instead. I picked up a Floor Guide to Doota and the cover was adorned with the members of the lesser known music group Vanilla Lucy (at least lesser known until Bae Da Hae made it big on Qualifications of Men) who were the exclusive models and that kind of spoke to the indie-feel or flavour of the store.
One of the things I noticed about Korean clothes and sizes is that they are very slim fitting. I didn’t see any obesity issues in Seoul (that’s not to say that they don’t exist, I just didn’t see any) and that was reflected in the sizes and clothing that were displayed and made available in stores, especially with woman's clothing. Clothing seemed to be more on the petite and slimmer side of things.
Contrast to the department stores, the Dongdaemun Market or Shopping Complex area is like the wholesale mecca for any and everything to do with fabrics. I don’t know if you have a store like Fabricland where you live but walking through Dongdaemun Shopping Complex was like seeing hundreds of mini-Fabricland-like stores. There were a million and one fabrics been sold by the yard off rolls, buttons, zippers, foam inserts for beds, blankets and comforters, material to make hanboks, and the list really goes on and on. While there are complexes that contain many of these stores, many of the neighbouring stores outside are selling the same things so it’s really the entire area that’s into fabrics. There was an incredible presence of delivery scooters in the area who I assumed were making deliveries of fabrics all across Seoul to clothing makers and the like.
I went to Dongdaemun with just department stores and shopping in mind and forgot the fact that the name “Dongdaemun” actually refers to a door or gateway. Thus, when I came across the gate, I was kind of surprised to see it. When I went to Namdaemun earlier in my trip, it struck me as strange that I never ran into and I was upset with myself for having overlooked it. In reality, I actually did see it but because it was encased in closed box undergoing construction, I didn’t recognized that I was in it’s presence. Dongdaemun is located in the corner of a busy intersection and most of it is off limits.
While I was taking the picture above, I was startled by this man at a nearby phone booth who all of sudden started screaming and cursing with someone on the other line. I didn’t really catch what he was saying, other than the swear words but the guy was a mess and visibly drunk at 1:30 in the afternoon. I only saw 2 cases of public drunkenness while in Seoul. The other time was coming back home in the early evening. I was walking up the long set of stairs exiting Dongnimmun Station and there was a businessman walking downwards. This guys must have just left a 회식 (like going for drinks after work which seemed to be common in Korea and something that is also expected of you). At any rate, watching this guy trying to walk down the stairs was like watching a someone walking a tightrope for the first time. Each step down seemed like it was in slow motion and a disaster waiting to happen but luckily enough, the guy made it down the stairs all in one piece. Whew.
Here is a video of some clips I took of the Great East Gate known as Dongdaemun and the delivery scooter presence in the area.
It was around 2PM so I started to look for something to eat. While getting fast food like Lotteria was super convenient when on the go, I wanted to have something different and I didn’t have any further plans than to go back to my aunts so I spent some time looking around for a place to eat. I’m kind of a visual person so places that have a clean and neat appearance tend to be more appealing to me. I found a place and it was a sit down restaurant but had a little bit of that fast food flare to it. I took a card of the restaurant but can’t seem to find it for the life of me. Thanks to Daum Maps Road View however, I was able to find the name and see that the place was called 신포 우리 만두 (“Shinpo Woori Mandoo”, click to see it). I like mandoo (which are Korean dumplings) but don't love them. I usually only like them when they are fried rather than steamed. It turns out that I didn’t even get any mandoo and instead I got a pan-fried chicken udon.
Does it look yummy? It was really good and really affordable! It had udon noodles, pieces of chicken, various vegetables like cabbage and onions and bonito flakes to top it off. I've had this dish in Toronto before but sadly the food in Toronto doesn't compare to the food in Korea. I miss the food in Korea. T.T
I didn’t feel like doing too much on this day that involved a lot of travelling between large distances so I decided to head to Dongdaemun to check out the department stores and markets that were located in the area. I didn’t take many pictures on this day and that’s usually an indication that nothing really caught my interest or I was doing something, like shopping, that didn’t call for pictures to be taken. On this day, I think it was a bit of both.
I arrived in the Dongdaemun area by getting off the subway at Dongdaemun History Station. If you are looking for soccer jerseys, there is an underground shopping alley connected to the station lined with small shops side-by-side selling nothing but jerseys. You can find all kinds of replica and authentic jerseys from the Korean National Team to Euro club teams. They also did name and number pressing and I was tempted to get a Park Ji-Sung printed jersey for my brother and then return the plain one I already bought at the Nike store earlier. The lettering they used however looked like it would eventually crack after repeated washes so I decided it was better to keep my blank jersey instead.
While there seemed to be numerous department stores in the Dongdaemun area, they definitely had a different vibe to them when compared to Lotte or Shinsegae. When I think of Lotte and Shinsegae, I think high-end, elegant, and fancy. When I think of the department stores in Dongdaemun (the main ones being Doota and Migliore), I think more younger, trendy and hip. That’s not to say that the items at Doota were any cheaper than Lotte. Both Doota and Migliore seemed to carry less mainstream items and more from the local or Korean designers scene instead. I picked up a Floor Guide to Doota and the cover was adorned with the members of the lesser known music group Vanilla Lucy (at least lesser known until Bae Da Hae made it big on Qualifications of Men) who were the exclusive models and that kind of spoke to the indie-feel or flavour of the store.
One of the things I noticed about Korean clothes and sizes is that they are very slim fitting. I didn’t see any obesity issues in Seoul (that’s not to say that they don’t exist, I just didn’t see any) and that was reflected in the sizes and clothing that were displayed and made available in stores, especially with woman's clothing. Clothing seemed to be more on the petite and slimmer side of things.
Contrast to the department stores, the Dongdaemun Market or Shopping Complex area is like the wholesale mecca for any and everything to do with fabrics. I don’t know if you have a store like Fabricland where you live but walking through Dongdaemun Shopping Complex was like seeing hundreds of mini-Fabricland-like stores. There were a million and one fabrics been sold by the yard off rolls, buttons, zippers, foam inserts for beds, blankets and comforters, material to make hanboks, and the list really goes on and on. While there are complexes that contain many of these stores, many of the neighbouring stores outside are selling the same things so it’s really the entire area that’s into fabrics. There was an incredible presence of delivery scooters in the area who I assumed were making deliveries of fabrics all across Seoul to clothing makers and the like.
I went to Dongdaemun with just department stores and shopping in mind and forgot the fact that the name “Dongdaemun” actually refers to a door or gateway. Thus, when I came across the gate, I was kind of surprised to see it. When I went to Namdaemun earlier in my trip, it struck me as strange that I never ran into and I was upset with myself for having overlooked it. In reality, I actually did see it but because it was encased in closed box undergoing construction, I didn’t recognized that I was in it’s presence. Dongdaemun is located in the corner of a busy intersection and most of it is off limits.
Here is a video of some clips I took of the Great East Gate known as Dongdaemun and the delivery scooter presence in the area.
It was around 2PM so I started to look for something to eat. While getting fast food like Lotteria was super convenient when on the go, I wanted to have something different and I didn’t have any further plans than to go back to my aunts so I spent some time looking around for a place to eat. I’m kind of a visual person so places that have a clean and neat appearance tend to be more appealing to me. I found a place and it was a sit down restaurant but had a little bit of that fast food flare to it. I took a card of the restaurant but can’t seem to find it for the life of me. Thanks to Daum Maps Road View however, I was able to find the name and see that the place was called 신포 우리 만두 (“Shinpo Woori Mandoo”, click to see it). I like mandoo (which are Korean dumplings) but don't love them. I usually only like them when they are fried rather than steamed. It turns out that I didn’t even get any mandoo and instead I got a pan-fried chicken udon.
Comments
Post a Comment