My first weekend I went to Mitch's place with Molly Z from Madison WI. (If you remember, I met her at the visa office, and she lives about 7 miles by bike or 7 stops by train away, and works about a 15 minute walk from where I live. ) Had some beer. Met Mitch's squeeze Ken. She's a multilingual wonder. Her father is some fairly well know artist, she promised me a tour of his studio sometime, and as it turns out she used to be addicted to the original StarCraft. So we have that to talk about.
The next day Mitch and Ken showed me around Itaewon and Insadong. Itaewon is about as diverse an area as Seoul has. Many custom tailors in the street asking if you'd like any custom suits made. I decided to go with Steve Tailor. Two custom shirts in a week for 38 bucks each plus a free burberry scarf. He wants me to buy a new suit and a custom peacoat. I'm not there yet, but the shirts are quite nice, plus my wrists aren't exposed all the time. Very commercial and caters to all the needs of the soldiers stationed at the base nearby, and all that implies.
It implies that you can buy Korean gongs and old diving gear
Kissin' chickens
A view of the end of Itaewon's main drag
A view the other way, of Seoul tower.
Then they took me to Insadong, which is right downtown, a few blocks from the main palace. At least that's where I thought it was. It's a long pedestrian street with little shops of all sorts of stuff, seems to be a bit of a tourist attraction. But not entirely. I got a top from a street vender that is weighted really well and spins for a long time. I forgot to take pictures of it, but there's a crazy indoor musical instrument market there, booth after booth of every type of musical equipment for sale. Repair shops etc. Then we went to a great tea house. I had Jujube tea, Ken had some flower tea, I forget which, and Mitch had Mike n Ike tea.
Ken and Mitch at the tea house
Tube an knob wiring at the tea house
Keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteYou're wearing short pants in Korea!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was outside Gwanju hiking in shorts an old man I met on the trail asked me how old I was. I told him 37, and he replied, while walking away cackling, "And you wear the pants of a boy?".