Namdaemun Ajumah

If you a firm believer of "I would shop till I drop", think twice before you say it in front of Grandma in the morning of the "shopping day".

We were whisked out of bed at 8am as couple cousins arrived at the hotel for breakfast together (yes, how wrong I was to think the Park Hyatt was far away enough...) Myung Hee hyunsoo nim was there to my rescue. I took Hyun Jo and Changunnie (Hyun Jo stayed with us the night before because Changunnie would not let unni go) to the restaurant when I saw the cousins at the table. It was strange to see a bunch of men, looking very much alike and eating together. I think the clan ate enough to trigger a reevaluation of pricing of the Park Hyatt breakfast buffet.

We headed to the Hyundai Department Store and Changunnie bought three pairs of shoes (it should have been me buying shoes!!) I have no plan to spoil Changunnie but the shoes were so cute and I simply couldn't find anything I like in Hong Kong other than paying a fortune. Why do people think that it's ok to make really crappy shoes for children? The healthy ones are simply ugly (poor design, look like something from comic books) and the nice looking ones are impossible to walk in. Children's feet are different from ours and they need lots of support and enough flexibility. Some genius out there use hard leather to make the sole for children's shoes. I know I would sprain my ankle if I wear those shoes...

Next stop? KIMCHI FRIDGE!! Making Kimchi is no simple matter. The water has to be good, the temperature right. We can't dig a hole in front of the garage to bury the urns and so we turned to Kimchi fridge. You can have different compartment (thus different temperature) to assist the fermentation of keeping of kimchi. Don't underestiamte them. A 180L one easily costs more than USD 1,000. They looked beautiful too. I think ours is arriving in 1 month.

We met up with Grandpa and daddy at the Coex Mall so that Changunnie can go for her pororo show (a penguin like cartoon/educational programme character on SBS) whilst Grandma and I can do more shopping. My legs were already a bit shaky at that point but we decided to be the trooper.

We wanted to buy traditional Korean dishes but it's harder than you think, even in a place like Korea where people stress the importance of traditions. We asked around and were sent to new department store to buy those made by Hankook brand. Those are nice but not exactly what we were looking for. We want something made by hand. We finally located one shop behind the food court of the mall, the kind of forgotten place that you wonder why people open shop there.

We spent about 1.5 hours there, picking all the dishes, bowls, cups, pots....etc. Grandma joked with the shopkeeper that she could close shop for the day and the shopkeeper actually said "You bet! I will after I packed up your order". We ended up having three boxes of dishes (delivered to the hotel) and my wallet a lot lighter.

We wondered where we could go to get Korean pillows, quilt, and underwears (don't laugh, you get really good quality undies at low price in Korea) and the pottery shop lady told us to go to Namdaemun. Namdaemun was one of the four city gates in the old time and now turned into a major market place. A while ago, the city gate building (a landmark in Seoul) was burnt down and people cried. Anyway, we decided not to repeat the experience of being trapped in traffic along Han Kang River and took the subway instead.

You think you know the art of negotiation from working in finance? Wait till after a shopping trip to Namdaemun Market. Those guys can smell what you are up to the moment you get within 15 ft of their shop front. We walked back and forth (sneakers please if you go) and haggled about the price of everything that we wanted to buy. The big breakfast was protein rich but the release of energy was faster than we thought. We stopped by a roadside mandoo jib. The pork and veg buns they sold smelled good. KRW 3000 for 5 buns. Not the cheapest but not costing an arm and a leg either. When we were about to pay, the ajumah at the shop picked up a bun that rolled off the tray and tried to pass it on as a fresh one. Being a mother, I am a believer of the three seconds rule and I was sure the bun was on the floor for less than 3 seconds. However, the floor was NOT my floor and I was a paying a customer, I protested and another ajumah intervened and threw the bun in question into the bin. Warning for all your travellers: Get the ones fresh out from the steamer. Even if they were on the floor, the high temperature would have killed the germs.

We got our shopping done and hopped into a cab for dinner at another cousin's house.