We took the subway to Hongdae where Hongik University is. Since it's a college area, there's lots of young people everywhere and it's definitely where a lot of the cool shops are. There are so many shoe stores and clothing stores everywhere but most of the stuff is too trendy for me. One place that we thought was really funny was this DVD place. We went in because Will wanted to see if they sold any Korean movies or what not and then it kind of looked like a rental place. Later we realized it's a place where you watch movies there. They have a bunch of rooms with huge TV screens and couches and you and your friends pay to watch a movie in one of their rooms that is designed to look like a living room. I thought this was kind of sketchy and just a place where people would go to make out but I guess it makes sense after all b/c Koreans don't seem to have couches. Apparently most people don't have couches in their house and that was the case at both of Will's aunts' houses. I suppose it's not that comfortable to watch a movie sitting on a wood floor with nothing else but a seat cushion.
Anyways, the reason we came here is because I read about a place called the "Free Artist Market." It's an outdoor flea market type area where local art students and other hippies sell their homemade art goods. I got some glass earrings and Will & I both got our pictures drawn by this artist lady below. It was neat because she had her own funky style and it wasn't realistic looking but not a caricature either. They were also only like $3 in American money so it was a cheap souvenir. she drew each of us separately and then had our hands holding if we were going to connect the pictures. She was cool.
Other than that, this place was just cool in general. There was SO many restaurants. People around here just love to eat and everyone advertises selling coffee and whiskey and beer. Also it's funny because a lot of businesses use American names but they end up being kind of funny. We saw "Boobi Boobi" and "Man Hole" and "Fuck Fake."
This was a cool restaurant. It was the Praha Castle which sold Czech food and looks like a castle. Random huh? They also have lots of places that sell Turkish kebabs and Turkish ice cream. The Turkish guy serving the ice cream does all these tricks and for some reason serves the ice cream on a cone using a REALLY long metal pole. We have yet to try it but Will couldn't get over the guy speaking PERFECT Korean. It's like the Starburst commercial I love with the Scottish-Korean contradiction.
Next we went to Namdaemun Market. They sold everything under the sun in this place. It was enormously big too. You could spend all day there like our Lonely Planet book said. My favorite thing they sold were these ginormous pig's feet. We didn't try them but maybe on another day.
Later Will's cousin took us out to dinner. We had never had Shabu-Shabu before so we wanted to try it. It wasn't too special. It was tasty but it's just like Chinese Hot Pot so it wasn't that new or different. For people who don't know what Shabu Shabu or Chinese Hot Pot is, it's when you cook your food table side in boiling water or broth, kind of like the Melting Pot. Here's Will's cousin and his family. They were cool. They drove us around to cool places afterward and took us for dessert too!
After getting ice cream they took us Cheonggye Stream. This place was cool. It is a stream that they restored with water from the Han River (huge river dividing Seoul). The street goes from Downtown to beyond Dongdaemun and people come and sit and put their feet in the water and there was some light show going on too. Anyways, off to start a new day!
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