Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong
As much as I like to take advantage of the weekends to go and do things in central Seoul, it can be a bit exhausting at times to fight all the crowds. Soon enough, you get used to it though. You go to the movie theater earlier to buy tickets….and if it’s raining, you almost expect that all the movies will be sold out for the rest of the day. You learn not to fight the crowds or try to weave your way through them at a faster pace than everyone else. No seats available on the subway, etc.
Almost 14 million people live in Seoul, so I’m not quite sure what I expected…although it was still a shock to me when I first arrived. I’ve gotten used to it by now. Going to Beijing and Shanghai recently was nice for many reason, but one of them was because we were able to walk from destination to destination without bumping into people everywhere we went. It felt like the first time I had ever walked a straight line on a sidewalk for longer than 10 seconds!
Well, I went to visit Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong (click here for map). There is much to see in both of these places for sure! Namdaemun Market is a much cheaper version where you can find anything from octopus, to random trinket souvenirs, or clothing at a very discounted price. At a place like this, you’re expected to bargain down. You can start that fun process by saying “Kaht-kaht chuseyo” (Give me a discount).
Myeongdong on the other hand, is only a 10 minute walk away, and has more high-end goods and the prices that go with it. It gets impossibly crowded on the weekends, but it’s a fun experiences to walk around and grab a bite to eat there after popping into a few of the shops. I haven’t spent a lot of time in this area because I always go on the weekends when it’s insanely crowded. Ashley and I used to hit up the TGIFriday’s there, and they also have a Tony Roma’s that gave a 50% discount on their baby back ribs every Monday (this deal only applied to foreigners, haha).
Instead, I opted to try the dish “samgyetang“, which is boiled chicken stuffed with ginseng and rice. I’d heard about it before, although there isn’t a place that sells it in my area so I was on the lookout. Namdaemun offers lots of ginseng products and I was sure I’d find it there. Sure enough I read a small sign in Korean that read 삼계탕 so I popped in to try it out. It didn’t dissapoint!
