Gwangjang Market

Gwangjang Market in Seoul.  A gem of a find that I had never discovered the first time I lived in South Korea to which Rocketman is grateful.  We decided to check it out last Saturday.  To get there, take Subway line #1, Jongno 5 ga Station, Exit 8.  It's still a walk of a few blocks and it is set back from the street so keep your eyes peeled to the left as you walk.

When you pass this, you know it is very close and you can enter it from here also.

This is where we entered and it is set back about 100 feet from the street.

Rocketman and I took a ton of pictures.  Gwangjang Market is one of the first and oldest traditional markets where you can find all sorts of textiles and notions.  It also has tons of Hanbok shops.  I went looking for pojagi fabric both the linen (summer) and satin (winter).  It was so large with so many booths that I had a hard time finding what I was looking for.

I found this shop that had samples of both pojagi and chasu.  But the vendor didn't have any satin or linen for sale, she had silk and it was beautiful.  I bought four colors because it was pretty expensive at 12,000 WON per yard.  She took us to a back room that was filled with beautiful chasu pieces.

I found some hanji along the way too.

And lots of darling hanboks.

We also found street food galore.  We had never seen so many vendors in one place.

We opted for mandu guk and of course, I plucked myself right down near the kimchi and helped myself.

We each got a huge bowl of mandu guk.  It was steaming hot and delicious.  They put a generous amount of pepper on time which is unusual but just the way Rocketman likes it.  I wonder how they knew.

They also had seamstresses ready to go and repair your garment.

You could find any kind of seafood you wanted.

I have no idea what these are and neither did Rocketman.  I thought they might be a sea cumbercucumber.

We also saw where you could chose your bowl of seafood and veggies, take it inside the shop and sit while they cook it for you.

You can see that I took a crazy about of pictures and so did Rocketman.  I'll post his pictures tomorrow.

I did buy a few things too.  This is silk thread for pojagi.

This is the silk I purchased.

This is the summer pojagi material.  It was 5000 WON a yard and is about 14 inches wide.

I also made this video while we were waiting for our mandu guk.  I was watching the noodles being cut and thought it was so cool.  Also, you see our soup being prepared on the left of the screen.