insadongno

today horace and i went into insadong to go to kobo bookstore. they have english book that we can read. the subway trip there is about 45mins to an hour. it was a good thing we had seats. the bookstore was packed with people. it was strange to see so many westerns in one area. we are so use to being the only ones that for awhile there i felt like i was in back in sf. we left the bookstore which was connected to the subway station and made our way outside to explore what insadong had to offer. plus horace was hungry. there were a lot of cool little alleyways so we just randomly pick some and walked down them. this one street we were on had a lot of shops similar to that in china town. at the end of block we stumbled upon the buddhist temples. it was really cool. there were all these people coming out, praying, lighting incense and candles. they had a information center there about buddhism that we are going to check out next time. after checking the beetle map we located the main drag. the atmosphere around insadongo was a lot more relaxed than in meyong-dong. it kind of felt like walking around the castro. it was crowded but not in a crazy way. we both really like this area. there were alot of westerns walking around and alot of the shop owners spoke english. we were one shop and this lady kept trying to sell me stuff but once i mention that i'd be here for a year she asked if i was a teacher. i said yes and then she left me alone. i've now found the secret. tell them you live here and they leave you alone.

the score of the day though was finding this kitschy store. for those of you in sf think of it as a cross between happy trails and uncle mames with all lot of vintage stuff. the store was tiny and crowded. and let me tell you one thing about koreans. they take pictures of everything. basically you're moving in a slow circular motion through the store but at a snails pace because they're too busy snapping photos. they had a lot of cool stuff there. i bought a few things. it made me happy.

during our journey through this wonderful insadong we came upon the millieum plaza. kind of like the mall of america but smaller. while inside i discovered my new favorite band the trax. the hair bands of the 80s are now alive in korea and in the form of the trax. i got sucked into watching their video. so great. my new quest is to find their album. we found the single but no album yet. thats one thing i've noticed so far not too many cd stores. i can't even tell you how great that video was. my other great discovery this week was dong bang shin ki [dbsk] other hair band but this one on the korean pop scene. their album doesn't come out til may. i'll keep you all posted.

on our way home we saw the bosingak bell temple. it was built in 1936 and they would ring the bell to tell the time. sometime in the 40s or even later it was moved to where it is now. it was pretty cool looking. i'll post the pictures of it some time tomorrow.
along with all the other photos of today.

back in ansan we passed by one of those electronic arm games where you try to win a prize thats too heavy to stay in the clutches of the arm. you know the ones i'm talking about. anyway horace pointed out that they had a plastic kettlefish toy. i got excited and told him to try to win it. he did and of course nothing. then i noticed the same kind of toy in the one next to the one horace was using so i decidced to try. the arm grabs it, starts bringing it up but as soon as it got to the top the toy dropped. damn. meanwhile horace moved on the stuffed bunny that have a nude lady lighter attached to it. i decided to try again and this next as luck would have i WON the kettlefish toy. how excited was i. this was the first time i ever won anything out of that game. i took a picture of it. i'll post that too.

i feel like i've been babbling forever now. i'm going to sign off and get some sleep. until next time.

blog set list:
listening to henry rollins radio show. very cool