Days 4 and 5

Mom and I spent most of Wednesday in Insadong, the great artsy-craftsy shopping street.  My sweet husband was amazed (and I’m sure grateful that he hadn’t been with us)—we walked the entire street, not once, but twice.  And since one of the similarities my mom and I share is shopping style (the compulsive look-at-every-single-option style), it took us most of the day. 

  

We took a break for lunch at a vegetarian temple food restaurant off of one of the Insadong side streets.  The décor was charming—the sit-on-the-floor section had “ondol” floor heating, and the table section we chose had some great antique furniture.  The food was pretty good too.

Then back to the shopping.  Mom found a beautiful painting and a great celadon vase, which we bought after checking just about every other pottery shop on the street, just to make sure there wasn’t a better or less expensive option.  Hehe.

I found a great wallet to replace my current one, which has pretty much fallen apart—again, after checking almost every store on the street that sold wallets, just to make sure there wasn’t a color I liked better.  We picked up a couple of gifts, and were finally ready to head home for the day.

I woke up Thursday to the yells and cheers of little kids (we’ve been sleeping with a window open since the weather has been so nice), and came out into the living room to find Mom leaning out the window in fascination.  There’s an elementary school down the street, and being on the 34^th floor we had a great view into the schoolyard where there was some kind of fall festival in progress.  The kids were holding hands in small circles, twirling around to the commands of music and a guy with a microphone.  The music would stop, the guy would yell something into the microphone, and the kids would scream and run to form bigger circles.  Too cute!

We spent the afternoon browsing in a series of antique shops in one of the neighborhoods of Seoul.  I’m looking for a small desk and maybe a coffee table, and I have a great spot in the ah-pah-tu for one of the wooden chests that I’ve seen several places here.  Unfortunately, most of what we were looking at was out of my price range, but I have a better idea now of what I want and how much it will cost.  And we had a lot of fun looking around. 

Dinner was tasty Thai food from a trendy restaurant in Itaewon.

What a fun day!