Day 6: Free Market and Ewha Woman’s University

The walk from Coffee Prince to the Free Market took me across parts of Hongik University which is an art-centric University and for a Saturday afternoon, the area looked like a regular school day as the streets were busy with people. It had me confused as to whether there was a special school event going on in the area or whether this was just a typical Saturday in the life of a Seoul student. In addition to the university students, I saw a lot of pre-university school students in the area also with their uniforms on. I heard stories about the pressures placed on Korean kids to do well academically and how they would study non-stop from morning until night. After school, parents would enroll their kids in all sorts of lessons and academies to further improve their chances of standing out amongst the competition. While travelling around town at night, I saw young school kids in their uniforms out and about in the evening hours and it made me think why aren’t these kids at home resting or playing or having fun?! During my trip, there were times I saw things that made me wish I had grown up in Korea but then things like the thought of studying 24/7 would snap me out of that dream.

Every weekend in the small park located across from Hongik University they hold two markets, the Free Market on Saturday and the Hope Market on Sunday. Many of the vendors are current or graduated students of Hongik University who come to sell their creative pieces of work. While both markets are quite similar I believe the Free Market focuses more on accessories, clothing items and art work where as the Hope Market focuses more on arts and crafts (but don’t quote me on that). There is also live music.

My reasons for wanting to go to the Free Market were I thought it would be interesting to see the creativity of Seoul’s artists on display but secretly, I’m a sucker for all things little and cute and I knew that I would probably be able to find stuff like that here. I found Seoul to be busting with cuteness in general with the things you can find in stores like cute socks with characters on them or cute accessories for things like your cellphone or clothes. I figured there would be more of a selection of cool, eccentric, unique and interesting items on display here than there would be at a store. Not that I actually buy or use any of that stuff being a guy and all, I just like to browse.^^

I got to the Free Market at around 1:30PM and the place was already active with buyers and browsers. There were many vendors all setup in the park side by side so I just started walking up and down the different tables and displays.

Just like how I imagined, there were so many cute things on display. A lot of artists sold items like comic strips, books, buttons and even bottom caps featuring cute cartoon characters they created themselves. I saw a lot of hand made stationary items like diary books and notepads dressed up in cute bindings and covers. There were a lot of jewelry and accessory items being sold. There were clothing items as well such as hand made scarves. Everything here just screamed handmade, crafty, creative, unique and cute. With the type of items being sold, the market seemed to attract more of younger female crowd. While I was there, I kept thinking that there would so many things that a girl would want to buy and use from here.

The guy and practical side of me prevented me from picking up a lot of these items but I did find one vendor who was selling cute little animals sculptures made of ceramic. He was selling a variety of animals in different sizes.  Some were meant to be stationary and some were accessories meant to be attached to cellphones or bags and the like. Bunnies are my favourite animals so naturally I picked up a pair (always buy in pairs or one will get lonely). My mom said my aunt quacked like a duck early in the week so when I saw some ducks, I picked up a pair also. All together they were 18,000WON (~$14CAN). They are only a few centimeters tall. Aren’t they cute?

Here are some clips I took from the Free Market.

There was no live music while I was there so after I finished looking around, I went to Starbucks right across the street for an Americano and some air conditioning. On my walk to Hongik Station, I ran into my first music CD store. I had been looking around for a CD store ever since I got to Seoul but they seemed to be a rarity and my cousin later told that there aren’t many around anymore other than a couple of big ones. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular but I mainly wanted to browse and see if there was anything that would catch my eye like a rare OST.

After I got to Hongik Station, my next destination was Ewha Womans University. It was close to Hongik (only 2 stations away) and there was a museum on campus that I wanted to visit that displayed art, clothing, furniture, and ceramics of the 양반 (aristocrats) back in that era of Korea. I also wanted to visit the campus because one of my friends who grew up in Korea went to Ewha University. I knew from before that Ewha was one of the most prestigious universities and the best university for women to get in to and that if you were accepted it meant that you were really intelligent. I wanted to step into my friends shoes for a brief moment and head to the university like a student (albeit a male student ^^) and see the kinds of things she saw and might have done on the way to school.

When I got off at Ewha Woman’s University Station and exited, I remember feeling the same thing I did at Hongik in that it felt surprisingly busy for a Saturday. The University is about a 10 minute walk from the subway station so you have to walk North. The street to the university is like one long commercial shopping district on both sides catering to all the needs of Seoul’s finest female students. I saw a lot of cafes, restaurants, beauty boutiques, clothing stores and also street vendors selling foods and snacks and things like accessories. Since the street isn’t all that wide either, it felt like it was that much more busy and crowded. Off the main street, there were smaller side streets and alleys that opened up to many more places to shop and eat. It looked like it would have been a lot of fun to hang out in this area with friends during and after school.

When I got to the entrance of Ewha University, it really opened up wide and it was such a contrast from the narrow-ish street I traversed to get here. The thing that really stood out for me was the spaciousness of the campus and the amount of lush landscaping and greenery there was. It felt like I was actually visiting a botanical gardens instead.

The museum that I wanted to visit was not too far from the entrance but when I got there it was closed even though my Lonely Planet book had it opening until 5PM. I was kind of disappointed that it was closed but I at least was able to visit the campus of Ewha and see what it was like and picture my friend having fun with her friends eating something like 떡복기(spicy rice cakes) along the street or having a coffee at one of the cafes I saw. While going to and from Ewha, one of the things I noticed was how well dressed female university students were. For university students, they dressed very chic and stylish which I found was a bit of contrast to how things were when I went to university in Toronto. When I went to university, it was more about being comfortable and if anything dressing down a little and that went double for me when I was in residence. I remember wearing hospital pants to class sometimes and my roomies would wear their flannel pajama pants to class and around campus.

I walked around the campus for a little while longer and headed back down the street and came to rest in this open outdoor area where a lot people were sitting and relaxing to think about what I wanted to do next. It was just past 3PM and the fireworks that I wanted to check out later that night weren’t starting until 7:30PM. Instead of going back “home” and then going out again, I just decided to stay out which meant I had 4.5 hours to spare…