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My stay here is coming to an end in the weekend. I would be back in Chennai to read Metroplus with a sip of strong decoction coffee on Monday morning. Aah, the joys of coffee and news. Even though I am not here as a tourist I could see quite a few places and interact with many people to qualify for this post.

1. People in Seoul are really sweet. Even though my interaction with general public is limited to weekends, I found them cheerful, caring and full of life. I think its got to do with the Korean culture. Often people here go out of their way to help you like the gentleman who helped me locate the right lane in subway when I was going alone once.
2. Weather here is really good and pleasent through out the year. Often during winter times it might become extremely bitter and painful, but nevertheless it gives you an opportunity to experiment with clothes and attires.
3. Sidewalks in Seoul are just too good. They are spacious, interesting and well kept. Most of the buildings here have huge patios and most of them have impressive stone work outside. So walking along them is a feast for eyes.
4. Food here is aint that bad for a vegetarian or strict chicken eating folks like me. Barring the fa(s)t food options like McD, KFC, BurgerKind there are a neat number of korean food options like Kimchi, Khare Rice, varieties of Omurice, Noodles and an impressive array of snack items to satisfy the willing tongues.
5. The planning of the city is a lesson for any city mayor in most of the developing countries. Each building has atleast 5 floors of basements, huge underground parking lots. Most of the subways are 4-5 floors deep in to earth. So much so that I often wonder whether the subways or deep or first they built the subway and then elevated everything else. Whatever may be the case, it just shows the amazing vision of these leaders.
6. The phrase “love is in the air” can be identified with typical Seoul public spaces. Never becoming obscene or vulgur unlike some western countries, Koreans seems to like the concept of cuddliness and clinging hands together. So much so that, even on escalators as soon the couple take the first step they turn around and hug each other till they reach the end.
7. Just the sheer variety of dresses and colors that people wear is mindblowing. But again the rule of no obscenity or exposing holds good. Given the korean mannequin like bodies and flappy hair, you feel like walking on a rather long romp with millions of models.



8. “20 years ago if you were taking photos of anything you would have been interrogated by police” shares my collegue in office. Its amazing that Seoul has acheived so much of development and order in the society in a matter of few decades. I used to feel that some of the Indian cities are good and given time they can reach other metros in the world. But now I feel that its not the time that is needed, its the will of people and policy makers that is lacking.
9. The city looks like an extended “no horns zone”. In Chennai walking back from office to home would usually be a stressful experience with lots of noise pollution for we like sound, the more the better. Here rarely I have heard any noise while walking. Its too good to be true. Its a fine mixture of good driving sense, proper infrastructure and care for other peoples feelings.
10. Despite being a very large city with 40% of South Korea’s population living in Seoul, the life here has been better and really organized. I think its one of those big cities with out any of the big city strappings.

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Last minute Christmas shopping frenzy combined with determination to buy a nice handbag to my fiancee made me wander the already crowded Myongdong streets on Sunday night. To say that the street is busy is a huge understatement. I actually relived the crowded Mumbai local train experiences on Sunday. So much so that the always cheerful shop keepers stopped saying “yo-bo-se-yo” and “kam-sa-ham-nida” to the shoppers.

There are these small carts selling items ranging from imitation handbags, jewelry, clothes to toys, eateries and Christmas cakes. Pretty much everything a person wants to pick-up in the last minute.

After looking for sometime, we thought may be more varieties can be found in a shop, so we went inside one of those malls in search of leather goods shop. After escalating for what seemed like a zillion steps, we landed at a place displaying handbags neatly stacked.
The shop keeper asked us whether we are looking for ladies or men’s handbags in broken English. We told him that its for ladies. He invited us to sit inside. My initial reaction was surprise. The shop looked more like a glorified cart than actual shop. Doubting his invitation we entered the place. Inside there is a miniature sofa and micro-mini chair, the kind where you can only rest a part of one of your butts. So there we are sitting and wondering whether we are in for the “Lo, there is a foreigner, lets swindle him by a few $s” trap.

Soon after the shop owner flashed this Louis Vuitton handbag catalogue and asked us to choose a model. Boy! these branded handbags are expensive. $200 leather bag for holding some loose change, cards, chocolates and a $150 mobile? Half jokingly we pointed at one of the models and asked him to bring it. He looked at us and said, “Best? Best?” meaning whether we want the original make. We nodded our head, not knowing what it meant.

He got a bag from somewhere else and started showing it to us. He tried to convince us that the bag is an original LV bag. We asked him what the price could be. He said “120,000 won”. We instantly wore a disapproving look on our faces. He said, “want imitation model?” We nodded yes.
This time around he got another bag which looked bang similar to the original one. When I say similar I mean both bags actually looked and felt same. This one was 20000 won. He is ready to sell it for even 15000. The same would be available for 10000 on the street carts. And even if there is a 1000 won margin on that, that’s still 8% of the original price.

So much for a brand name. But I am more surprised at their deftness and professionalism in cloning these bags to such an extent that you would doubt the original ones.

On a side note, dont ever miss the Myongdong market if you are in Seoul. Its a place worth seeing for fashion / shopping lovers. Directions: Outside Myongdong subway, Near Sejong hotel.

In a hurry to make most of the weekend, 4 of us rushed to the Chungmuro metro station, bought tickets for Yongsan[view Yongsan photos] and rushed to line number 4. The train came in a moment and we boarded it immediately. After a couple of stations Rhushi shouted, “Abe, we took the wrong direction. We should go to Seoul Metro station and change over; instead, we are going back.” After some confusion Rajesh figured out that he did misguided all of us to take the metro going in other direction. We got down at the next stop; the walls read “Dongdaemun”

Then Rhushi recalled that Dongdaemun indeed is a shopping town itself, so we changed the plans and decided to browse this area.Dongdaemun literally means “great eastern gate” in Korean.

As soon as we got out, we saw this beautiful river bisecting the road. Alongside the river are lots of Christmas lights and lights. Everywhere festival mood is at a high.

After realizing that the Dongdaemun shopping plaza is closed on Sundays we decided to walk further and see what is there. We walked through a very busy sideway selling everything from fruits, eatables, bags, leather items, t-shits, tools, cigarettes all in congested little shops flocked by loads of people. We bargained for a handbag while lots of busy shoppers kept jostling us, only to give up finding the multi-dimensional negotiation with shop-keeper and people tough.

When we reached the end of the street we were in front of a place called “Doota” (later I came to know that Doota indeed is one of the finest shopping places for clothes in Seoul). The place is really nice. First couple floors are dedicated for women’s wear. Lots of out of the world fashion items were available there. We thought we would leave the place since it seemed like they are selling only ladies wear, but somehow we convinced ourselves to explore the 3rd floor. It ended up being the men’s section. We were instantly in a world of finest men’s fashion wear. Lots of nice clothes are available there. Office, party, winter, casual, play . . . anything you want, you could get it there. We went mad looking at the amount of variety and attractive options there. I wasn’t out of the place before I bought a winter jacket and a t-shirt for myself.

When we came out it was already dark and cold. The entrance of the shopping mall is decorated with beautiful snow-flake like Christmas lights. There is an artificial snow machine too. Just when we wanted to leave the place, there was an announcement in Korean. Doota is organizing some audition for dancers that day, so there were lots of people there dancing on an elevated platform in front of the mall. We stayed for some time there and enjoyed the dance and music. It felt like good old days of campus late night parties.

We explored Dongdaemun further albeit our wallets weighing much lesser than what they did when we entered Doota. Ahead of the mall there is a small watch shop on the platform selling beautiful wrist gear. Apparently there is no bargaining culture in Korea, the shop keeper tells the price, and if you like it you pay and buy the item. But we nagged with the watch shop lady and got a couple of watches for 10000 won each. The lady almost got mad when we kept on purchasing watches and bargained for every piece.

Since it was getting cold, we decided to take the subway back home. But on the way we stopped by at a beautiful tie shop and we bought a few ties each.

The set back was 100000 won, but the upside is lots of fun and pleasant evening. Don’t miss Dongdaemun shopping experience if you ever come to Seoul.

[Reaching Dongdaemun station from Seoul: Take subway line 4 and getdown at Dongdaemun, 5th stop. Seoul subway map here]

I love my Sony Ericsson walkman phone. Ever since it entered my life most of the boring situations have become interesting. Being a new recruit in office meant having to eat my lunch alone, not any more ever since I got the phone. I could play “Aahista Aahista” from Swades by ARR or “Summer - Party” from Requiem for a Dream by Clint Mansel and instantly be in company. The best part is that the music quality and noise reduction features are simply amazing.

Friday I woke up late. By the time I got ready the shuttle to office has left. Generally the bus leaves at 8:30 from the place where I stay and takes about 15 mins to reach the downtown Seoul. By walk it takes 25 mins to reach the place. And to be frank I didnt feel the cold or loneliness once since I was enjoying the music.

No wonder Sony Ericsson’s new campaign for their walkman phones is so true. Watch the entire video at their site.

As planned earlier, Saturday was busy to the end. After a good and loooooong sleep, we (few other TCSers and myself) went to Yangson area in Seoul where one of the biggest electronic malls is located.

It was extremely cold today. I think it was -2 degrees or something when we came out of the station. The good thing with Seoul is that most of the indoors (that includes cabs, metros, buses, even small convenient stores) are air conditioned. The bad thing is once you step out doors the chill can be painful. Add to that, if its windy your exposed body parts become numb in no time.

So, when we stepped out of the station, the instant reaction for all of us was to look for a covered area. Despite full sleeved thick jacket, gloves, shoes, winter cap I could feel my ears paining.

Well, apart from the chill, the shopping at digital mart (or emart or emarket as the locals call it) is cool. Its a huge 7 storied mall with each floor focusing on certain variety of electronic goods. A floor full of gaming consoles, another full of digital cameras and like that. I bought a memory stick and a tripod. Since this is one of my several visits to that place I haven’t really done much shopping.

Anyways, some of the snaps I took at emart

View from Yangson station in Seoul.

I saw this at Yangson station. KoRail (similar to Indian Railways) set it up.

Digital Mart entrance in the evening.

Most of the places in Seoul are beautifully decorated with Chirstmas lights. I took some blurred pics of them.

Later we went to Iteawon area where we can get foreign food groceries. I felt like a kid let loose in a candy store when I saw Haldiram mixture packets there. You get almost everything there. Sadly they are a little expensive. After having a coffee at Starbucks and finding it incredibly expensive we returned to the apartment.

Finally the day ended with a good Sambhar meal and a streaming telugu movie from internet.

First in Seoul is coming to an end and there is a host of activities planned for the 2 days.

• Visit atleast one toursit spot in the city.
• Try the much famed underground metro of Seoul.
• Go to the foriegn food mall in ethewan (or something that sounds similar) and pick up some vegetables, Taiwanese rice, normal curd and other survival necessities.
• Shortlist the portable game console that I want to buy when I go back to India. Whether its Gameboy or some of its latest versions…?
• Catch up with friends thru orkut, chat and mail.
• Cook some really sumptous meal, I am tired of eating with one curry everyday
• Find out where to get best and sub-one dollor coffee or find a way to make one.
• Post some pics of Seoul on the blog.