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On my own again today, I decided to head into Myeongdong - a hotspot for tourists wanting to shop. Even though I couldn't understand what she was saying, Mama Ha was evidently worried about the prospect of me travelling all alone. I patted her on the shoulder to reassure her, but she still indicated the direction I had to take after going through the front door. I knew that much, at least. However, I found that I didn't know much more.
Half an hour later with less confidence than I started off with, I ended up at Cheongdam Station - the station next to the one I wanted to go to. I settled for it and made my way to Myeongdong rather painlessly.
Myeongdong has all the big international chain stores such as H&M, Uniqlo, Louis Vuitton, Zara, etc. Many of the tourists in the area were Japanese and the shop hawkers (not sure that I'm using the term correctly here) knew it, speak-speak-speaking away in their Nihongo. I noticed that the best thing about being a Western tourist is that very few Koreans seem to know how/be willing to speak any English or otherwise Western language. I walked around with a sense of impunity.
Despite the shopkeepers not wanting to engage in English as I passed by, they weren't completely lacking when I went to look at their goods. Maybe they were just afraid of me, I don't know. In any case, I ended up getting soft when haggling, so only managed to get my laptop bag (finally!) brought down to 51,000 won from 66,000. So weak. I'd might as well have just bought one in Sydney, really.
Note: you can only haggle at places where they don't sell brand name goods.
For lunch, I was determined to find something grossly unhealthy to eat, like fried chicken, but when I found a place, the thought of it just seemed too sad. That, and heavily fried food isn't good for a sickly boy such as myself. I think it took me around one and a half hours to decide on a place to eat, but the journey to find food was not all for nought:
In Myeongdong, if the shops around you in broad daylight aren't enough, you can always check out the underground shopping centre:
The first little shop I walked past sold K-pop merchandise, so I stopped by to have a look at the stuff on display out front. Looking at the posters, I was right next to the DVD section, of which the entirety seemed to be adult movies. I was not strategically positioned at all. The foreigner points against me are increasing rapidly.
All in all, Myeongdong has its selling points, but it's not a place that you need to visit more than once. If you want to shop, it's the perfect place for you, but expect things to be more or less the same as what you'd pay back home in Western civilisation, including food.
Reuniting with Seung at our 5PM meeting place reminded me of two things: (1) Starbucks is awful wherever you go and (2) I'd finally get to meet my friend Soohyun again for the first time since January.
The already sub-par English Breakfast was made worse by the barista telling me that only Koreans could use the wi-fi. Preposterous. That said, I was fairly susceptible to being in a bad mood, as I've been getting increasingly sick ever since arriving.
Still having time to kill before meeting up with Soo, Seung and I arrived early and spent time around Itaewon. We joked that it was essentially like being back in Sydney, such was the ethnic diversity. The main difference was that there were more American soldiers here. If you get homesick in South Korea, Itaewon is probably the place for you. There are more international cuisine restaurants than ones offering Korean food and the majority of pubs and clubs (of which there are many) play Western music. There are also a lot of trendy cafes and Western-style fashion stores. It all added up to help Itaewon take away my feeling of being special in South Korea.
Seung decided that we'd complete our little duo adventure by persuading me to talk to a Korean student who was conducting a survey in the subway. I felt like a creep the entire time, but (thankfully) she was nice enough. We later agreed that, even though I didn't get a phone number, finding out where she lives was better. Creepier, too.
The reunion with Soo (she was good enough to find a popular Korean restaurant in Itaewon for us):
After waiting 20-30 minutes to get in, I'm still not exactly sure what we ate, but prawns, battered zucchini, and a variety of handmade noodles definitely made an appearance. My ineptitude with chopsticks absorbed most of my attention whilst Soo and Seung conversed over my head in Korean. It was beautiful.
We later headed to a bar (called Praha Bar, I believe) which I was a tad opposed to since it sounded as non-Korean as possible (sort of sub-continental, actually.) It somehow managed to be classy with Beyonce showing on the TV monitors and even 'Blurred Lines' being in the music play list. I have the feeling this would go for the majority of bars in Itaewon, but drinks were about as expensive here as they would be at a decent place in Sydney: $4-5 for soft drinks, $7-$10 for beers, $10-$18 for cocktails, $10 for shots and all wine had to be paid for by the bottle. In any case, conversation took up most of the time here (though Seung is a mean drunk after just one drink.)
At the end of the night, we managed to convince Soo to spend time with us being tourists on Saturday and then caught the last train home. As Seung said it: mission complete.
p.s. Mama Ha just burped. It was adorable.
- Charith
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