In Sol Dong

As if there weren't enough towns and people and things to buy, In Sol Dong came into view. It's completely a tourist trap! As soon as I left the taxi, I was surrounded by people of all sorts of nationalities and side-street carts full of colorful and flashy trinkets. The stores had unique collectibles including old fashioned pottery, clothing, pots, fans, hats, and other such artifact-copies. I entered a small park whose entry was an old fashioned traditional gate and wall. Once inside, I saw a very well polished stone wall to my right and two statues on either side of the wall. The wall had written on it Korea's writ of independence. It was written in English, Korean, and Chinese. Further inside the small park was an open patio type of building with traditional colorful paintwork. At the very end of the park by the wall was a very tall and old artifact that had been surrounded and protected behind glass.

The guardians of the gate!!... not really

The writ of independence

Surrounding city

Smirking me

Patio! It needs mosquito screens

A description of the above photo, and yes my reflection too

Another me next to the mosquito-screenless patio

From here we went to the side-street shopping stores and collectible shops. I broke down and bought a couple things... one of which was a lovely jewelry box with abalone shells to decorate the outside! :D I cannot wait to bring it home and use it! :D

A white guy painting Asian stuff... can't lie, he's good!

Hand-painted fans

LOVERLY! But about 200,000 wons

More jewelry boxes

Royalty crowns

More royal crowns

More jewelry boxes! You can tell I like colorful things

Rows of hand-crafted fans

Hand-made pottery

I wanna take these home!

Upper-class fans... not much different huh?

After this I went to the National Folk Museum of Korea. Here there were traditional buildings scattered across the huge museum grounds. At the center was a huge palace that had been renovated and preserved. At the far corner was an artifact museum where they kept smaller artifacts and showed the change of the times through the ages behind glass walls. I'll let pictures do the work here! Enjoy!

The entry

Supposedly a gate to protect the stone in the background, representing someone's son.

A grinding mill!

Water wheel

The forbidden palace, literally... we weren't allowed in >.<

An army!! about as high as my knee...

Traditional clothing

Old pottery. Me want!!

An old scroll in jibberish... It's Chinese.

A children's book apparently.

This has been used as decoration in rich homes.

Storage boxes for random things

Medicines... they look dangerous

A student's room

The family kitchen; I regretfully did not see the year >.<

**~XOXOXOXOX~**

Feeling Like A Tourist

On Saturday night, my cousins and sis and I took off for an evening out. Sadly since I lacked a sense of direction with a language barrier, I was unable to identify my location. Sorry guys!! We were quickly surrounded by the nightlife. There were young people and couples everywhere. Here is where the strange things come out to play, as they say. Dreadlocks aren't common around here, but this night was the first I saw a man with dreadlocks! Quite long too. His hair was to his waist. This Asian guy certainly didn't match his dreads though... Also, I saw emos and people with dyed blue and green/pink hair. I thought WOW! A mild form of Portland!! Oooh how I miss you Portland. :P I took a shot at one of the quieter clubs here, because the one I wanted to go to had a line waiting outside that would take at least an hour to get through. It was very dizzying, mirrors everywhere and lights flashing like there were millions of disco balls everywhere. The music pounded to the very core of my body, almost manipulating my heartbeat! :P Despite the exciting music and lights, there was nobody there... Hm... Okay excuse my run-on here. I've never been to a club so I was a little stunned. :P After spending about ten minutes in there I left.

The line to the popular club >.< Wraps around the building.

Can you read it? That's the name of the club. :P

Walking the streets was quite the challenge. There were so many people that it felt like the I205 Portland bridge during rush hour, except instead of cars it's people. :P Oh talking of cars, there were even cars on the streets! I don't know what motivated them to drive around in the backstreets. It most certainly wasn't to take a short cut. On the grassy areas I also ran into groups of musicians performing music with their instruments and voices. There was one guy who was bopping his head to the music like crazy! Hahaha glad he was having fun. Too bad I didn't get a video of it. :P

A band surrounded by night-folk

The guy in red is the one I'm talking about...

Man so many people!!

Finally we stopped at a restaurant/bar where we sat at tables that were sunken into the floor and benches where we could dangle our feet... at least mine. I'm kinda short. :P Ordered a nice, cooooold pitcher-full of kiwi flavored 4% alcohol to sip on as I watched the traffic go by. Aaaah this is the LIFE!

 No no, not tipsy... just acting dorky

YUM!

Myong Dong

I suppose one must realize that the whole of Seoul is shopping heaven! We went to yet another city called Myong Dong that was filled with heavy pedestrian traffic and tons of stores. This is where I found an increased abundance of foreigners. Stopping at the Skyline II Hotel for a potty break, I passed by a wall covered in celebrity trinkets. The child in me burst in excitement as I went on a rampage to take photos and desire the trinkets that wouldn't ever be allowed into my grasp. Please bear with me as you'll see some of the photos I took from there. :P However, I DID manage to get a small baggie with Kim Nam Gil and a key chain with Jung Ji Hoon (Rain) on it. Woopee!!!

Lee Jun Kiiiiii! 

 Gee I love Kim Nam Gil

Fan-to-celeb heaven!! (mini heaven)

Finishing my previous intention for the pit stop, I tried to get in. But the door was pass-code-locked!! Come on, a touch pad with a password to get the toilet??? I wish I could have taken a picture, but I was too busy watching a lady shove past me and punch in the pass-code. Hah!! Got in the bathroom and it was quite nice, except for the fact that the soap dispenser was darned cheap and so was the toilet paper! So much for being secret whoever put that password on the bathroom door!

Anyways! Slowly trudging our way amongst young shoppers, we landed in a two story shopping store that seemed rather low-end compared to Dong Daemun Shopping Centers. However much of it cost around the same price as Dong Daemun, which didn't make that much sense. Nothing seemed quite exciting or eye-catching in this particular store so we made our way deeper into the shopping town. There were lots of flashy trinkets and yummy-smelling food, kind of made me hungry. To my excitement, I saw that they have a Pizza Hut here!! I sooo wanted to stop and eat some but the rest of the ladies were too interested in clothes... or maybe I'm just too interested in food? This place too is where they hold The Body Shop (from the US yay!), Forever21, Nike, and H&M!!!! Ooooh was I thrilled as I raced in. To my displeasure I realized that their styles did not appeal to me like the ones at home. Besides this, everything cost so much more than at home. After a full day of purchasing no clothes (bonus for the purse!... or wallet for men) and lots of wandering, we headed back to my aunt's house to rest our poor little feetsies.

My attempt at a shocked face... ew :P

 Some random store with lots of people

Dongdaemun Shopping Centers

We made our way through a crammed and jammed sidewalk. Many foreigners seem to convene in these parts, Indians, Germans, Ukranian, Chinese, Japanese, Americans (YAY!) and other nationalities. While making my way across the sidewalk, I saw a man with no lower leg, which would have consisted of his tibia and fibula. :( He still had his patellar bone, so the lower leg was but a stump. He also had a patch on his eye. It was a sad sight, as he stood by the subway station begging for money. As I got off the sidewalk I saw yet another individual in the same condition. In his case however, I think he may have a slight mental issue as well... Sigh... it was a sad sight. To be honest. I don't think that Korea is very elderly or handicapped friendly at all....

                                    

Okay to be honest, I have no idea what mall it was that we visited, but it was at least five stories high, first level full of LOVELY one-of-a-kind designer clothing. Some very unique, others a little bit on the average end. Second level was much the same story. Third story I believe consisted of office attire. The fourth floor held baggages, leather purses, shoes, sunglasses, and the like. The fifth floor had... can you guess it?? Yes! FINALLY, the men's clothing. Hahaha. Sorry gent's, you gotta go to the top to get your fanciful attire.

The clothes in this shopping center are sold by individual entrepreneurial designers who design the clothing and sell only a few that they make at the time and never again sell the exact same design. I honestly find that hard to believe, seeing there are only so many designs one can devise without being redundant... but that's just my limited thinking I suppose.

The lowest price of the clothing displayed at the shopping center here was about 65,000 won, and that was for a simple but beautiful shirt. We weren't allowed to take photos... so.. sssssh! I took a sneak peak! :D I'm posting this JUST so you can get a sneak peak of what I got to see. I'm sorry if the photos are blurry. You know why I'm sure. ;)

I LOVE that dress!

This was pretty cute ^^

awesome shirt minus the hat

TADA! MY new dress :D ... and shoes ;)