The Marathon Shopping Day & Modern Art Museum

Friday I decided would be my shopping day. I left Adam and the kids at the hotel. They were going to work on homwork and classwork (which they finished!) and then go swimming again. I was headed to Insadong, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what would be open since it was the last day of the national holiday. I found it without much trouble – I must be getting much better at navigating Seoul. I didn’t leave until 10 am since things open so late here, and when I got there, it was just starting to open. Many stores were closed today, but maybe half were open. There were many “Korean Souvenir” shops that I wandered through. I also went through a larger store with individual vendors and picked up some Red Ginseng for a friend. There was a woman with hanboks there that were very nice, but the selection was very limited. Most of the vendors spoke a fair amount of English and were super nice.

I continued up the little street. I passed tea houses, art galleries, pottery stores, brush painting supply stores, and restaurants. There is even a small mall type building that is 4 or 5 stories. You walk up the stairs to the second floor, but after that, the stores line a little ramp walkway that slowing winds around the building up the top floor. There were a lot of cool things in that little mall. I could have bought a ton of stuff, but it’s hard to decide when you have limited space to bring things home. I did pick up a beautiful carved name chop for baby Finn! What I didn’t really find though, was a nice hanbok store. There were lots of modern hanboks to be found here though, if you are looking for that. Since I had the entire day, I decided to make a few more stops.

I wanted to go back to Mapo-Gu, where I went the first day to find Eastern Social Welfare Society, and go to the hanbok store that I spotted while there. It had some very nice hanboks in the window and had rows of them hanging on racks. Unfortunately, when I got there, it was still closed. I suspect it may be closed for the entire weekend, though they didn’t have a paper sign up. They do have a digital marquis, but obviously I couldn’t read what that said (though there weren’t any dates listed on it, like I’ve seen on other shops that were closed for the holiday).

Another thing I needed to do was go to Itaewan and find the name scroll guy. So, what the heck, might as well go now! So I got back on the subway and headed to Itaewan. I found the Hamilton shopping center without any problem, but it was closed! Drat! Stupid holiday! There was a tourist information person standing there and he did say it would be open tomorrow. So I’m going to have to try to make it back there after we see Finn. I don’t know how long it takes for him to make the name scrolls (I need 3 of them for friends) but I’m running out of time! I walked down and then back up the main street in Itaewan. I found a little place that had hanboks and spent some time there looking at things. They weren’t the best quality though. I did get one for Brett that is black and peach and he said he likes it, so that’s good! And it was more affordable than the others I bought.

After I was done in Itaewan, it was time to head back to the hotel. I whipped out my handy subway map and figured out how to get home. I had to switch trains at Seoul station. Hmmm…that’s where Lotte Mart is. Well gee, I guess I’ll have to stop there, since I’ll be right there and all. So into Lotte Mart I go. It was busy, but not like it was the last time we were there. That must have been due to holiday shopping: kind of like going to the grocery store the day before Christmas or Thanksgiving. The women working there were not in hanboks today either – another feature of the holiday. I headed up to the toy section again – Brett was just dying for another Ninjago figure so he could actually have a battle. And I had some shopping to do for a friend’s kids as well. I grabbed a bunch of toys for my kids and hers. I went to look at their hanboks again, and they really are quite nice. But, they didn’t have the right color for one friend, and didn’t have a matching set for another. Drat again! I also grabbed some training chopsticks for my kids. Mira can use regular chopsticks, but Brett can’t. I got some for him and Finn and couldn’t leave Mira out, so got her some too. I had quite the load of toys! Good thing I brought two big reusable shopping bags. Lotte Mart doesn’t give you bags at check out. I still have a couple things that wouldn’t fit in my bags though. By this time, I’m carrying two large reusable shopping bags filled with toys, a small paper bag filled with red ginseng and a name chop, and a large bag filled with a hanbok and another toy. And then I also had my camera bag, and a large Pororo laptop under my arm. I looked like a pack mule and was dreading having to carry all that stuff up the subway stairs.

I headed back to the hotel. By this time, I had been out walking from 10 am, and didn’t get back to the hotel until about 4 PM. I was so hot and tired by the time I got there. My face was all red and flushed and the room felt like 100 degrees. I unloaded all the stuff, set the kids off with their toys, and relaxed for a few minutes. We decided to go check out the Museum of modern Art that was nearby, and Deoksugung Palace. We bought our tickets and then went to tour the museum. We had NO IDEA how popular the museum is. It was PACKED. And so hot. Hottest place we’ve been so far. It was kind of small too. There were 4 galleries, and we pushed out way through them pretty quickly. Adam would have preferred to study the paintings more, but it was too hot and too crowded. We couldn’t wait to get outside to the cool weather!

We then toured the palace grounds and snapped some photos. Brett really likes the palaces. Once we were done there, it was around 6 and it was time for dinner. There was an Outback across the street so we headed there. We had our dinner and then headed back to the hotel. The kids were exhausted and it was getting late!

So that was yesterday’s adventure. My feet still hurt, but I must say, my legs barely hurt going up all those stairs now. It’s surprising how quickly you get used to that. Tomorrow is Saturday. The BIG day. We get to meet Finn. We are supposed to be at KSS at 3:00 PM which is giving me all kinds of stress. It’s not an easy place to get to, and I so hope we don’t get lost! Wish us luck!