Wednesday, my school moved classes to earlier in the day so people could do their New Year's Eve celebrations at home that evening. It was really cool to be done with classes at 2pm and get to have the whole day to ourselves. Kendra and I spent the day going to Costco and E-Mart to get some much needed groceries and other assorted items (she really needed an external hard-drive for her overflowing laptop). We were ridiculously tired after hiking all over the place for that and headed home to feast upon the fruits of our labors (for me that meant a Caesar salad... yummm) and get settled in for the rest of our four day weekend.
On New Year's day proper (Thursday, that is), Tara called asking to come over saying that if she didn't get out of the apartment soon she was going to go crazy. Everything besides the 7-11 were closed so outing options were limited.
Instead, we talked boys (we came to the conclusion that the majority of them are stupid... sorry, but facts are not in your favor, Male Readers) and looked through some tour magazines I picked up to plan some adventures for our weekend.
Now, something you need to know about Tara and me is that when when we get together we become super girly. I don't know what it is. Our favorite activity is shopping together. We can waste tons of time walking around a mall and we don't even have to spend money (though, admittedly, we usually do). So it came as no surprise that we made plans to go to Namdaemun Market, which Tara had not visited yet.
Friday turned out to be the perfect day to go to Namdaemun. There was, like, no one there! Usually when I go there are crowds of people all over the place. There was still a good amount of people but it was still pretty easy to maneuver our way through to all the open shops.
The first thing that caught our attention outside the subway station wasn't a shop, but a big ol' fat pigeon. It was sitting all fluffed up by this giant pile of garbage. It was so dirty and ugly that I kind of think it's cute.
Speaking of gross things, there was one guy selling some really nasty looking fish that looked about a week old. I'm ok with fish markets but these were NOT fresh fish. Eeew...
After taking the picture of the icky fishies, I turned around and saw the CUTEST LITTLE BABY COATS! My friends who have married in these last few years should make announcements that they are having baby girls so I can have an excuse to buy some of these cute baby coats. :)
Another thing that you see a lot of in Namdaemun is ginseng. Apparently, Namdaemun is famous for it. It looks like little aliens in a jar all over the place. Kind of creepy. But in an awesome way.
We also went underground to a shopping center and there was this one store that had a crap load of records! I don't collect or use records at all, but it was a pretty cool site.
Tara was also amazed by the sheer number of records at this guy's store.
We also got some delicious pancake things. It was pretty awesome watching the lady cool these. The would press them flat with the little smasher thing and then use her BARE HAND to flip them over! I mean, this is a hot griddle covered in oil and she just reaches in, grabs the pancake, flips it over, and rubs a little more oil on the flat of the pancake for good measure! She has super human hands of steel. That, or she's been doing this for years and the nerves in her fingertips are shot.
Then came the Scary Bathroom Adventure. Tara needed a bathroom and on our way to find a public building with posibilities of a bathroom, we happened upon a sign that definitely pointed to bathrooms. After walking up a few flights of increasingly grimy stairs, we got to the top of a the building and it looked pretty much like an abandoned warehouse with a ton of boxes piled up.
Some old dude (probably a janitor of some kind) asked us if we were looking for the bathroom (at least we think so... he asked about the "hwajangshil") and he pointed us down this hallway of what we think were little houses. It seriously looked like people lived in some of these.
Then we went down another hallway between some sketchy buildings and we were pretty certain we weren't going to find the bathroom.
I was beginning to question if I had remembered the word for "bathroom" correct or if maybe he had asked us if we were looking for homeless people shelters when, tada! we found the bathroom. And this is the sight that greeted us.
Yep. The first thing you see is an unobstructed view of the urinals! Lucky for us there was no one there at the time.
One thing that held true for these bathrooms that is in most public bathrooms in Korea is the potty bucket. They don't flush toilet paper here, but instead put it in a bucket. I will never get used to that. I frequently forget to put my used paper in the bucket. I'm a stupid American. I have gotten better, though, about putting my paper in the bucket.
Before I sat down to do my business, Tara discovered there was no toilet paper in her stall. So I checked my stall, the other two stalls, as well as the stall in the mens' restroom before we began searching our purses for some kind of replacement. The whole time we were doing this, I was silently cursing myself for leaving my travel toilet paper in my other purse at home.
There was a supply cabinet that we thought might possibly have a secret hidden stash of toilet paper in it. However the cabinet was locked. We still wanted to know what was in it so I held my camera over the door and took a picture.
No toilet paper. Just a bunch of cleaning supplies and junk. Oh well.
One good thing about the Scary Bathroom Adventure was the view from the top of the building. You could see all of Namdaemun from that place. It was pretty awesome.
After we checked the Scary Bathroom Adventure off our lists of things we probably should never do again (rape whistle, anyone?), we headed back into the streets of Namdaemun. Tara had been on the lookout for a pair of boots and one shoe store in particular looked promising.
Second adventure of the day: Creepy Shoe Guy!
One of the shop worker at the shoe store spoke English. From what we could tell, this old guy (the English speaking dude's dad) owned the shop and he and his sister worked there. Tara was asking about shoes and he was asking about her. Haha!
You get this all the time from guys in shops here as they try to flirt up the American girls that come into their shops. "Oh, you so pretty ladies!" "America! U! S! A! I loooove U.S.A.!" And it's funny and cute. This guy took it a little further with comments like, "Oh, I love you," and "You are just my type." That last one killed us. We were laughing so hard. And his comments came with hugs. Oh, dear. It was so awkward and funny. I kept one hand on my purse during these nice little hugs and watched Tara's, too. I've seen too many shows about those "Free Hugs" where people are just stealing wallets to trust hugs from strangers (not to mention CREEPY STRANGER HUGGING ME!).
He took advantage of our willingness to accept his hugs. His last hug was the most awkward and I actually pushed him away after he KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK! After that I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away saying, "Ok, we're done, now." After Tara paid he pointed to his cheek and asked her for a "po-po" or "little kiss" and she laughed and was like, "No! I'm not KISSING you! You're crazy! Ahjushi," she turned to his dad, "Your son is CRAZY!" And the old guy just laughed an old dude laugh while the daughter/sister smiled awkwardly and looked really uncomfortable.
I still think this guy had a little soju with his lunch (Korean alcohol). Tara even asked him and he was like, "NO! No! Oh, my GAWD, NO! Never! No soju!" with some added Korean in there that was probably something about crazy American girls.
Tara made sure we got a picture with this guy because it was so strange. I don't have a copy yet, but she said she'd email me copies of her pictures from Namdaemun, so as soon as I have a picture, I'll post it right here so you can see the Creepy Shoe Guy.
Next up: Myung Dong!
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