Day 3 - Shopping in Sincheon

Day 3

Before I went out I borrowed an umbrella from the Bluguest House keeper. I asked him if he asked his cousin about that good bulgogi place that he knows, but he forgot to do that. So he asked if I wanted to go eat bulgogi with him next week.

My traditional Korean lunch (since I missed breakfast)

Today it rained the whole day so I went shopping indoors. To get to a place in Seoul is hard without being distracted by so many other things so I think I never made it to the center of Sincheon.

In the first street in Sincheon when coming from Hongdae I saw a music academy. I went inside and I met the head teacher there. It was a music academy for kids – piano, voice, violin. I got tea and we talked with help of my dictionary. I also met her daughter who is 1O, she can speak English.

On the way back down I passed a calligraphy studio. I went inside and one of the calligraphy experts wrote my name in a few different styles and he let me try it too. The rain made the paper a little wet :(

나탄스

The caligraphy expert - he also took a pic with his camera

I went into a supermarket and there was a coffee girl giving out free coffee. She was pretty and she couldn’t speak English. I didn’t have that much to say to her (I think she was not so smart actually). I asked her where the coffee was from and she said “Ethiopia” as if it was the first time in her life she said that.

Like I said, I went shopping. Across the street is the Hyundai department store. This is a big white building with black front doors. Inside there was a lot of activity going on. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, they were all white. I asked the 2 customer service girls where the man’s department was since the ground floor was very woman-oriented.

Every time I walked into a store, the employees greeted me in Korean and when I left they did the same. Also, their greetings were sincere and loud and that made the whole experience very likeable. I am not used to that since in Amsterdam that doesn’t really happen. What I also noticed is that many of the products are European, especially French and Italian.

On one of the floors I went to try on a few “coats for suits”. We were alone (the store was sort of separate from the other stores) and the girl who helped me was the highlight of the shopping center “Blazer” “Yeah” we said as we understood each other. Out of all the friendly people in the shopping center she was the best. She was pretty but besides that she was very sun-shiny. I don’t know how else to say it. She didn’t speak English but she really tried to understand me. I tried on a blazer and I thought it was too tight. “I want something more... stretchy”. “Stretchy” she repeated in a happy way. She knew that word :) It’s fun how little things like that are fun.

She helped me try on 2 stretchy blazers and I could not decide between them. We kept talking in Korean and somehow I knew what she meant without knowing the meaning of most of the words she said. Every time I put on a blazer she sort of arranged the back a little and she was always smiling as if she was having fun. Eventually I couldn’t choose between the black one which had a good “line” (she said that in English) and the light grew one which fit a little better but it was grey. Later on she said something I couldn’t understand. She called a translator who showed up in 2 mins. Then I spoke with her too and at some point the blazer girl said to the translator that I had a dictionary :) I didn’t know which one to buy so I didn’t buy anything.

Dinner – I asked a girl what was the best restaurant. She spoke native level English but as she was explaining to me that she was looking for a restaurant herself and she didn't know which one was good, her girlfriend came up from behind us and they started talking in Korean about what she was doing (with me). With no real advice I had bibimbap for dinner.

Actually, they did advice me to eat bibimbap because it was delicious. So why did they eat something else? :D

The Hyundai shopping center is connected with an airbridge to the U-plex building. At the bottom of that is an underground mall. It’s not that big though. And the U-plex is just a cheaper department store.

At night I walked around in Sincheon. So many places to go to, at every intersection you discover many more streets with lights and people. I must have walked 5 kilometers without getting an overview of the place!

Basically, the most common type of stores in Korea are: PC bang (internet cafe), Norebang (karaoke), coffee place (where they sell coffee and usually also sandwiches), restaurants (up to now the food is not as good as I thought it would be? Am I going to the wrong restaurants?), cosmetic store and phone store (but normal tourists can’t get a phone nr in Korea, or use a non-Korean IMEI).

On the way back I asked the way to Hongdae. This girl was wearing the most make up I had seen in Seoul. Her voice was like Nana’s voice in White Tears, I don’t know what personality that voice is related to but I think it sounded sort of high maintenance. But I guess she was nice.