South Korea Vacation Part 27 - Food and an Intriguing Purse Shop

 

We spent a lot of evenings in Seoul walking around. We had dinners with Hannah at all sorts of wonderful out of the way eateries. I don't know if I spent a lifetime in Korea I would ever be able to visit all the wonderful places to eat.

                  Near our AirBnB, there was this coffee shop and the name just made me laugh.

                                                               They also had a clever logo.

One night Hannah took us to a really old part of Seoul where the streets at night become lined with lots of street food. I had never seen anything like this.

We were early evening when we walked by and Hannah said that the places would be full of people in a few hours.

We had eaten dinner nearby at a place famous for chicken. It was fantastic and the owners loved having us there.

Every day as we made our way to the subway, we passed this purse shop. It was always filled with Chinese tourist and everyone left with a package. After encountering this I knew I just had to check it out.

The purses were all the same style but in different sizes and colors. They were very well made and all leather. I asked how much a purse was and was told 90,000 WON ($90 USD). I thought it would be a lot more so I bought one. The store clerk placed the purse I chose back on display and went into a back room to get a brand new one for me. She opened the package to show that it was the same purse I had picked. I was thrilled until I got back to the apartment and unpacked the purse.

I loved the purse but I also loved the tassel that all the displayed purses had so naturally I thought the purse came with a tassel. Wrong! I was so disappointed so I packaged up my newly bought purse and Rocketman went with me to see why it didn't come with a tassel.

 

The sales clerk was so nice.  She told us that the tassel was extra. So I asked how much thinking it couldn't be more than $20. It was $49,900WON ($49.90 USD). We both about choked. That was more than half the price of the purse. Yikes! I really liked the purse and with the tassel. Rocketman shrugged and said to get the tassel. So here is a photo of my purse. I still love it but I wish I would have known the tassel was extra I wouldn't have bought the purse.

 

The rest of our stay we saw a continued stream of Chinese tourists exiting this shop with purchases. Never fear, you don't have to travel all the way to Korea to own Kwani handbag, you can find them here.

South Korea Vacation Part 26 - Kim Nan-Young's Neighborhood

While I was in chilbo (Korean enameling) class, Rocketman did a walk about the neighborhood. It seems to be changing all the time.

When Nan-Young first moved here years ago, the street was really run down and in disarray but the Korean government has put a lot of money into the area to make it beautiful. It has become quite a tourist attraction too and is located just south of the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace (화성행궁). The street is full of artists including Nan-Young and my hanji teacher.

                                                I love this photo Rocketman took.

                  Rocketman spent some time in the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace (화성행궁).

 

 

I took this photo of a butterfly bench. It was near Nan-Young's shop. It was so creative and I wish I could have ordered one for my house.

There is a coffee shop across the street from Nan-Young's and sometimes we would arrive way too early for my class so we would stop for tea at this shop. The owner always has decorated the shop in all kinds of homemade crafts. Definitely my kind of place.

Rocketman deciding what to order. They have lots of teas and coffees to choose from. I love that they used a knitted blanket to give privacy between the booths.

This is how Rocketman's tea came. He has had it before but they are always kind and show us how to prepare the tea. This was our last day in Suwon. The rest of the remaining days of our vacation was spent in Seoul.