I Found My People...

So how long did ya'll think it would take me to find the sewing paraphrenalia area? I did spend about $30 on fabric, but I got some good ones. Here they are waiting for their chance in the washing machine.



So what else did I do today on this my second Saturday in Korea? Well, Luna got her morning walk, then I read up on good places to eat and stuff to see in Seoul and wrote down the routes for the subway, I so need a subway map, seriously.

Then came the shopping in Dongdaemun. Weird thing about the sewing fair was that there were as many men as women and more men than women selling the fabric. The cheapest fabric was 1000 won per yard and the most expensive I asked about was 5000 won per yard. Nice and reasonably priced. On the first floor are buttons, zippers, thread, scissors, seam rippers, etc (you get the idea. There are also some store toward the end that actually sew as well as sell fabric. Also there were a lot of what I can only assume are design students, you women mostly carrying around notebooks with fashions drawn inside and colored. It's kinda cool to see. I wonder if there are any other areas where I can see a lot of sewing stuff and I doubt it. From what I can tell, Koreans like to go to specific areas to shop. For example, the book sellers area or jewelry area. Yes you can find the items elsewhere, but they are more expensive and a lot less variety. One this I can certainly say is that this market was packed with people and fabric. It's like a maze and I did get lost a few times, not lost as in, how do I get out of here, but lost like, I just saw some really nice jersey or a nice cotton print and want to go back to it, but can't remember where it is. bummer.

Okay, so after spending hours at the Dongdaemon shopping center, I took the subway to Sinchon and got some tex, On the Border style. Yep, you heard me right.



It was nice if a bit expensive. On the bright side, I don't mind spending $20 for a meal I would pay $12 for back in the states since I'm not paying for breakfast or lunch during the week and have mostly spend less than $10 a day for food. Nice. One other nice thing about the area is the Burger King and McDonalds that are right beside the subway exit, if I hadn't been able to find OTB, I'd still been set for western style food. Oh and OTB had a pretty large collection of westerners. I think I saw 7 other ones in the restaurant. I also saw some at Dongdaemon and got some help on the subway from a pleasant Aussie chick who had a map. Why do the Seoul subway people not put maps on the walls of the routes. Seriously, they usually seem to post a map of the area around the subway stop, but no maps of the subway route. Hurumph. But back to Sinchon, they also have a rather large Skin Food, as in almost twice as big as the one here in Bundang and that explains how I spent my $100 budgeted for today. One of the benefits of not using cards is definitely that I have to think of what I can afford to spend and bring only that. So $50 went to lunch and the fabric store and the other $50 went to Skin Food, Etude House, and Face Shop. Of the 3 (which are essentially the same sorts of shops), I prefer Skin Food. Etude House seems to be reaching for the teenager clinetelle, but they do have some nice products and Face shop is more expensive. They all give out free samples, but Skin Food gave more out then the other 2.

So this is my haul



Nice, oh and this is a cute dog clothes stand I saw on my way home.



Aww, so cute and only 5000 won a pop. I think I'll buy Luna a tshirt next time we go out in the evenings since that may make people a little less scared of her. Some people do not react when to dogs begger than a few pounds, but I've heard frilly stuff works like a charm. There also seems to be a bit of racism going on since Luna's black :-P

Hmm, so after Sinchon I was tired and out of money so I came home and did laundry and took the trash out and took Luna for a walk and read a book and sorted through my DvDs. Yep, I'm going to tell you all the details of my day because I just know ya'll are totally interested.


Oh and btw, this is Dondaemon gate, for some reason Seoul put roads around all it's gates, i guess it makes sense since that was the point of the gates, traffic, but it still seems strange to me.