Market Tours -- Seonam Market

It's come to my attention that after 9 months of living here and countless (25) blog entries, only a handful (1 or 2) have anything to do with the city that I'm calling home.  So if you've ever found yourself wondering how I've been spending my free time in Daegu, then I suggest you consider finding a hobby.  If a hobby is too much work, then you're in luck because I've begun to tour some of Daegu's traditional street markets.

I get a kick out of strolling through the markets.  There's nothing quite like them back home.  I suppose flea markets would pose a fair comparison, but most of the flea markets that I've enjoyed are seasonal and usually limited to one or two days a week, (and you'd be hard pressed to find a flea market where people are literally butchering livestock in front of you while simultaneously hocking items like socks, hiking apparel, and kitchen utensils).  The markets here are open everyday of the year.  There is no sign that reads "weather permitting".  The scents and the scenes change every 40 steps or so and the food is plentiful and cheap.

At first glance, especially to an untrained eye such as your own, these markets all appear to be larger or smaller versions of the same thing, and to that I say...yeah, for the most part, the market places are all fairly similar.  They can all be (and will be) rated on criteria such as: Food, (duh), Variety, (obscure vendors score points here), and Freaky Deaky (the main reason why I go to these places).

I'll be using an arbitrary rating scale of 1-9. I'm sick of ten being the gold standard.  And an odd number makes one number, 5 in this case, the middle, therefore actually allowing the system to account for "average".  

The first market I'll sample is Seonam Market which is located just west of Duryu Park, (not to be confused with the much larger and much more well known Seomun Market).

Sidewalk/street vendors like these are a telltale sign that a traditional market is close by.  A dead giveaway would be the cart of flower printed pants in the foreground.

The main stretch.  Surprisingly mellow for a nice Saturday afternoon.

The streets leading into the market were lined with giant heaps of garlic.  You could probably smell this place from 3 miles away.

Here's a cart full of dried fish; some of it bagged, some of it boxed, and some of it just lying there with glassy eyes and mouths agape.

They were grinding these chilies into powder which noticeably altered the air quality in this corner of the market. 

Not much to say about this.  Just a bunch of fish.

Pajeon!  (파전)  Somewhere between a Korean pancake and a Korean pizza depending on which type you order.  The kimchi variety, (far left, front row), is my favorite.

Rice Cakes (떡).  These little guys come in all shapes and sizes and make for the perfect Market-strolling-snack.  Not pictured are the ones rolled in sesame seeds with red bean paste in the middle.  My coteacher brings them to school sometimes and if it wasn't rude to do so, I'd devour them all.

Just some fish on a grill.

Jokbal (족발).  Boiled pig's feet.  That's what you're looking at.  Pig's feet that have been boiled for hours in a giant vat in some darkened alley.  Sounds pretty dodgy but it's quite tasty especially when it's paired with kimchi and wrapped in a sesame leaf.  Seonam Market is famous for this stuff and had I known beforehand, I would have sampled the goods.  I find it hard to believe that one section of town can boil feet better than the other, but I'm not a podiatrist.  I am however an expert when it comes to this:

Mandu (만두)  Step aside other street foods.  Mandu is my absolute favorite snack in Korea.  I call it a snack because it's not really a meal even though me and someone who shall remain nameless (Josh) may or may not have (may have) devoured upwards of 25-30 of these guys in one sitting.  (Don't look at me like that).  That's 25-30 between two of us.  An easy feat considering 10 of the smaller ones, which are filled with either minced pork or kimchi and minced pork (the best kind), are usually around 3500W (2.50 USD).     

I shall refer to these as Garage Sale Stores.  Every market has at least one.  Some have two or three, (or more).  While it looks like some post apocalyptic-roadside-gypsy camp, these are usually fairly organized establishments, (organized in a way that if you ask the owner for something, they usually have it and they usually know exactly where it is).

This picture is relevant because all over the city we've seen watermelon priced exuberantly.  I'm talking upwards of 22,000W (about 21 USD).  I've named this place the Mom and Pop Melon Platform/Store.  You can see the actual storefront in the background of the photo.  The whole place was full of melons and some of these melons, (the smaller lot), were going for a very affordable price of 4,000W (3 USD).  Caroline loves watermelon so she was happy to buy one though I keep forgetting to ask her how it was.

I mentioned her excitement but did you think her head would actually turn into a watermelon?

Seonam Market

Size: Average

And now for the best part.  As mentioned, I'm going to arbitrarily rate Seonam Market on a scale of 1-9 in the following 3 criteria: Food, Variety, and Freaky Deaky.  I've chosen to use spatulas to represent the ratings.  Why?  I don't know, it was the first word that popped into my head.  

Food: I've definitely seen a larger variety of foods at other markets but all of the food here at Seonam looked and smelled really good.  

Score: 6 spatulas

Variety: Nothing jumps out at me here. 

Score: 3 spatulas

Freak Deaky: Multiple pig foot boiling stations.  One or two butchers dismantling entire hogs.  Not much else though.

Score: 3 spatulas 

Total Score: 12/27

Not a bad score considering this market flies under the radar.  Although the Freaky score was lower than what I'd like to see in a market, I'd definitely head back to this place as the prices were more than fair and the people running shop were very friendly.  

Happy Birthday Buddha

I'm not sure anyone is aware of it, but Buddha turned 2576 years old this year.  Or I guess he would have turned 2576 years old had he not left this physical world almost 2500 years ago.  But his death was not in vain.  Not only do we have the ability to make jokes about people with large stomachs, we here in Korea are also awarded a 3 day holiday weekend.   So how did we celebrate over 2500 years of Buddha?  We took a 4 hour, (more like 9 with holiday traffic), bus ride to the small sea side village of Sokcho.  Why?  Because we felt like it.  (And also, there's a beautiful National Park near Sokcho called Seoraksan and this was the actual reason for enduring such a long and terrible bus journey).  

I said terrible but I'm just exaggerating as the bus was actually pretty comfortable and we were traveling with friends so there was never a shortage of good conversation:

Luckily, I remembered to pack my Josh, so I wasn't bored on the ride up.

Okay, enough with the Josh and on to the real reason I'm even writing this: Seoraksan National Park.  Although I was only there for a day and only able to complete one hike, Seoraksan has sky rocketed to the top of my favorite-places-in-Korea List.  In fact, I didn't even have a list prior to this trip, I had to create one because this place deserves to be on the top of something.

Here's a quick rundown of the park presented in list form (complete with bullet points):

-- Seoraksan was the first National Park in Korea being designated as such in 1970

-- The highest peak is Daechongbong at 1708 meters (5604 ft)

-- The rock is granite and gneiss

-- More than 1,000 different plant species have been classified

-- More than 1,500 different animal species have been classified

The Hike:  We decided to hike Ulsanbawi, which means wobbly rock.  The wobbly rock wasn't at the top of the trail, it was towards the middle.  There was a really long line to get to the rock and once there, you could push it and make it wobble a little bit.  Then you got to have your picture taken so that you could prove that you were there.  We elected to skip the line and continue on to the top of the mountain.

I'm going to apologize in advance for what's about to come.  I'm not really sure what else I can write so I'm about to flood your digital space with photos.  I'm not much of a photographer and I attribute that to either a) I'm not much of a photographer, b) my camera reacts weird to natural light, c) my eyes aren't that good and I can't tell when things are in focus, or d) a combination of some or all of the above. 

The Quest

The different shades of green were so vibrant that even someone as remarkably colorblind as I am could appreciate it.  I especially liked how some of the taller pines created dark green ribbons that cut through the rest of the forest.

The final kilometer of the hike was mostly just a long, winding staircase.  I suppose stairs are a better option than say, scaling the side of the rock face.

Here's a view of Ulsanbawi taken from the balcony of our hotel room.  This photo does very little to capture its majesty but let me point out that I spotted our hotel from the top and I've seen bigger (and better looking) lego structures.