Markets and BBQ
 | 30-Apr-2018| First stop of the day: Namdaemun Market. The city’s largest market, it has been serving Seoul since 1964 and is chock full (and I mean FULL) of housewares, clothing, shoes, accessories and food staples. Most of the stalls are probably 50 sq. feet and the merchandise spills out onto the walkways in every direction. There’s barely room to pass another person in most of the buildings; the street level stalls at least have the road for foot traffic.Shops were opening up when we arrived and we spent a good two hours wandering the stalls, arcades, and proper buildings that make up the market. I found some cool Japanese and Korean earthenware. |
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After dropping off our stuff from Namdaemun at the hotel, we continued on to the neighborhood we were in yesterday, hoping to find the shops and market open and in full swing. Passed a painted bear and three segments of the Berlin Wall. |
 Cheonggyecheon-ro, a main east-west thoroughfare, has a cool water feature between its east- and west-bound lanes. About 15 feet below street level is a stream with rock features, trees and paved walking paths. At each street-level bridge there are stairs up from the pedestrian walkway. You can barely hear the traffic down here; it’s easy to forget you’re in the middle of a huge city. |
Back at street level, this is the part of town where all things tools, hardware, construction and home renovation can be purchased. And it’s a hodgepodge of new and old at highly specialized, tiny storefronts. But if you need it, whatever IT is, they probably have it. And the cranky looking old guy running the place probably knows exactly where it is in what appears to be chaos.The walkway in these parts are shared with overflow merchandise, special orders waiting for pickup, pedestrians, shop owners, the shop owners’ cronies who stopped off for coffee and a smoke, and Road Warrior-esque scooters picking up or dropping off deliveries. These delivery guys are hard-core. |
 Two reasons we’re back in this part of town: a record store and a fabric market. After another failed attempt to find the record store, Jeff found online that they’d moved.With that news we continued on to Gwangjang Market which is primarily focused on garnet manufacturing including notions of all sorts, trims, tools and fabric, both precut and cut-to-order. We waded into the market, down ridiculously narrow walkways and into cramped shops. Plenty of textiles, for sure, but the linens, silks and men’s wool suiting were the standouts. Unfortunately I didn’t spot anything that meets my needs for near-term sewing plans, so nothing found its way into my bag. |
 After the market, it was onto the subway to haul clear across town to the Hongjk Univ. area to another record store and a local craft beer house. After circling a block twice, we finally found Craft One. Noting in the address that it’s on the 2nd floor would have been helpful. Unfortunately they’d also updated their hours and are no longer open in the afternoon. With that plan for lunch crushed, we backtracked to another promising looking joint: Burger Museum.I know, I know, we had burgers yesterday, but this was a forced audible on the lunch plan, so don’t judge.After lunch we successfully located the nearby record shop, but nothing noteworthy. Back to the subway and a break at the hotel. |
 After break from walking the city under hazy sunshine, we headed back out for dinner. We’d decided on Baekjeong BBQ, one of the few Korean BBQ joints still cooking on the tabletop over charcoal. After a brief wait, we were shown to our table preset with coals, several sauces, kimchi, and lettuce. We selected pork jowl and marinated beef, and observed the process at nearby tables while we waited for the cuts of meat to arrive. One of the channels of the BBQ grill was filled with mixed egg which baked up nicely as our meat cooked. The serving staff got things started on the grill, but we could tend it ourselves as well. Once the pork cuts were nice and crispy, a new grate was brought to the table for the beef. Dinner was awesome – the place was full (20+ tables) with a line out the door when we left. Definite win!
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On the walk back to the hotel we picked up some green tea soft serve ice cream – YUM!! We’ve had two packed days here in Seoul, but not overwhelming. We did walk 27 miles total so that offsets the eating, right? We head out mid-day tomorrow to our next destination: Osaka!! |
BTW – the Korean sock game is strong. If you like the short no-show socks – these rock! They actually don’t slide off your heels, and bonus – they’re $1/pair here. I might have stocked up… |
