So, owing to late shopping at Dongdaemun yesterday, and the 10 km walk home ofc, I hade a record late breakfast at 12.00. Yes, thats extreme, but then I'm mostly still on Swedish time ie one could argue I woke up at 3.00 in the morning. ;-) Here is my lunch:
So before going to to first must see of the day, Namsam Tower, we walked through Myengdong and Namdaemun market (again), and here I got a revelation. Well, sort of. We passed by the wonderful Ttrak of Bloo (no, not "track of blood") which is a heaven for a kpop-lover.
The thing is, before going to seoul, I had tried to distance myself from kpop fandom feelings and instead be like "yea, whatever". I mean, what is a week in the heart of kpop, eh? My defences thoguh began falling bit by bit by hearing kpop hits all the time and being surrounded by all theese small signs of kpop, kdrama and just general cultural markers you see all the time at home when you watch it. Like:
Seeing Lee Min-Jung från Big, and many others, doing ads.
And I think I saw Bae Suzy from miss A in two different ads at a TV in just one minute. She seems to be really popular. I first saw her in the above mentioned tv-series Big. I will blog about that one later on.
Anyway, Ttrak of Bloo was the obviouos end to my self-deluding, since I left that place all warm over carrying with me treasures you cant guess! CD:s? Well, yes. Hmm, well maybe that wan't to hard, but still look at what I found (and this was just a minimum choice from my side, made possible by extreme self-control...):
From left to right, up to bottom it is:
- Ga-In with her latest album, featuring the single Bloom. I actually boought this on principle, even though the tracks are good too, because the music video depicts a female sexuality beyond the male ppoint of view that pervades kpop.
- Super Junior photos, presents for home
- Gangnam Style with PSY. Well, ofc I HAD to buy one of theese. Its shaped like a box of burnable DVD's and really a nice memory of what happened to kpop in 2012 on the world stage.
- Ornage Caramel with their second mini album. Aing among other tracks. The group that brought me inte kpop.
- Sexy Love with T-ara (7th mini album). One of my favorite bands and tracks this year
- Orange Caramel again, this time with the latest Lipstick single.
Even though they are nicely packaged, the albums usually only costs roughly 14000 WOn, ie 95 SEK/14$. To be honest Im not even sure if they are compatible with my swedish CD-player, but the Books that comes with the album and just supporting the bands I have already downloaded from the internet felt right. And since I was such an enthusiastic customer (yes, I tried not to giggle or drool to much), he even threw in two free posters (orange caramel, yay!).
This was sorely tempting, signed CD's by the stars themselves, I really had to lay of them (this time).
So, if you are in Seoul and likes kpop, I warmly recommends this place. It is in the southwest end of Myengdong, you enter the market area from the Myengdong station and turn left at the first street and walk towards the distant Shinsagae department store. Close to the end of the street you find it on the left hand side of the street. Or google for this: 부루의뜨락 on Google Maps.
Dazed by this, feeling warm and cozy inside, the walk then went through Namdaemun market and then down towards Namsum Tower. Given the choice between taking a challenge or doing it the easy way, I did as usual and took the long way. Literally.
Instead of going by the cable car I thought I'd walk up to Namsam Tower, but that was quite a long and steep walk. I'm in quite OK shape, but a brisk uphill walk, though a very beutiful (certainly in spring/summer), still took me roughly 35 mins and weak in my legs. Ah, who am I kidding, I liked it!
Anyway, the tower and the view was as expected, no more or no less. The interesting thing was the tradition of couples placing locks on places they could, usually up in the tower I thought, but here they were on iron christmas trees. Nice idea:
A guy making fast food in a very effective way. Almost worth paying to see.
The hard way
Free show of traditional martial arts at the top
View towards north and downtown Seoul (well, just a small part of Seoul, actually)
Christmas locker trees
See, trees made completely out of locks, often with romantic texts on them
After Namsam tower it was evening break and then time for the Jump show. It is a kind of show popular in Seoul where you actually doesn't need to understand any korean since, beyond some basic korean sounds korresponding to "ouch","hello", and so, which you get anyway, its all about the acting (out) and the martial arts. Its a story about a family who has a break in, and combines slapstick with sound effects and great showmanship. It comes warmly recommended.
Just a snapshot before the show, I didnt dare photograph more...
Just one more comment, a general one:
After two and a half days here in Seoul using the subway I have noticed something I haven't seen an the subway, at least not nearly in the same scale, as in for example London, Beijing or Stockholm, and that is the dynamic merging of business=shopping and subway. Often you either have the subway stations contain shops on the way to the exits, or you have belowground transfer corridors (can be even kilometers!) with sopping stalls, or even stand alone shopping centers, all of these usually situated below street crossings as to serve as an alternative to pedestrian crossings. Its all very nice on makes the subway a lot more "Lived in" and comfy almost at times. And between midnight and 5:30 in the morning the entrances and first hallways are left open for homeless to sleep in, which seemed to be done in a relatively orderly fashion.
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