Apart from the superhighway that took me away from the airport [which looked like superhighways do, the world over], the best part of Korea for me were the streets. I was with friends and always safe, but I tell you — we walked down our share of creepy laneways while we were there.
No such thing as an empty street in Seoul. One street we walked along was comprised of all the elements of the printing industry — paper distributors, graphic artists, printers, book-binders. Most of the goods were transported up and down the street on huge flats balanced on the backs of motorcycles.
One of my favourite streets was Insadong, the market in downtown Seoul. It’s pretty touristy [it was there I saw the only caucasion women I spied on the whole trip], but still had lots of things to strike my fancy. This is back of author Lee Edward Fodi’s head as he hightails it through Insadong in pursuit of Poo Dough. [And you can read all about THAT in yesterday’s post…]
In a related note, if you click on the Lee’s name above, it’ll link you to his new book trailer for the latest Kendra Kandlestar book, coming this October. Kazah Kool!
And now, after that brief commercial interlude, back to Korean Kool.
‘Cute’ is very popular in Korea right now, so there was a fair share of Hello Kitty — including an entire store and tea-shop devoted to same — but I also managed to find a few things from the dark side of Korean culture that appealed to me.
More on that topic in another post.
In the meantime, I hope you get as much enjoyment as I did with some of these mysterious, bizarre and wonderful people-passages that are the by-ways of Seoul.
An almost-deserted back street at night.
A more typical daytime view.
Another street market. [the sheer quantity of goods available for purchased completely boggled my mind. I’ve been to many of the world’s great cities, but I’ve never seen anything like it. A shopper’s paradise.
I’m in the process of organizing my Korea shots on my Flickr page — will post the link as soon as they are ready.
More soon…
~kc
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