Dan Brown from South Korea: April 2009

Bi Bim Bop. A favorite of mine at a bus station restaurant. The bus terminal is like an airport terminal. There are stores and restaurants throughout. This is early lunch after getting off the bus from Jecheon to Seoul.

These are worksheets from Korean class.

This is a side street off a popular shopping neighborhood. The strength of the Yen and Dollar compared to the poor performing Won make Seoul a great place to shop. This money exchange is situated conveniently near an entertainment venue.

Dongdaemun Stadium. Skyscrapers of shopping. Specially known for clothing. Shopping is highly focused by neighborhood or dong. There are dongs specially suitable to clothing, sporting goods, electronics, autos, etc.

Street Vendors in Dongdaemun

Namsam Tower in the background.

Yongsan electronics mall across from the train station. I bought a Samsung notebook computer after haggling with 4 competing stalls. It appears that there is some price fixing and collusion between vendors. However, when you get one vendor who is having a slow day to move beyond that price the others do it too to spite each other. There are more than 8 floors of electronics. I was able to have MS Office 2007 installed in English, and Windows Vista in English. There is an agreement that Windows 7 will be put on for free in September.

KoRail Train Station at Yongsan (i think).

Hyundai Department Store. Department stores are big and malls don't really exist.

Maybe a Korean post office truck, or a private company? However, what I wanted to picture was the graphic. The police stations, construction signs, and many stores all have these style characters. Probably the armed services too.