Day 112

It's here.  The post my grandmother has been waiting for.  It's time for...

KOREAN COSTCO

Costco is fabulous.  It's the best corporation on the planet.  Not only does Costco sell everything from cheese to yoga pants to coffins, they also treat their employees pretty well and operate in eight countries.  Korea has eight Costco warehouses, four of which are in Seoul.  (Rumor has it a ninth is opening soon, most likely in Seoul.  A quarter of Korea's population lives in Seoul, you know!)

Costco!

At first everything looks great.  The membership cost is lower; $55 in the USA, but just ₩30,000 (about $27) in Korea.  But don't be fooled by the multistory and perpetually crowded exterior.  Unfortunately, Korean Costco is not as awesome as American Costco.  Korean Costco's products are more expensive and the selection is significantly poorer.  However, the real benefit here isn't in the bulk-buying savings.  Instead, Korean Costco serves mainly as a foreign food depot for homesick Westerners.

So what does Korean Costco have to offer?

A fine selection of fine cheeses!

Costco sells cheese and deli meats, which are both nigh impossible to find in Korea except for in foreign food stores.  Small amounts of cheese can be purchased at some grocery stores, but are insanely expensive.  I can even get bratwurst and sausages here!  So delicious.

Oh sweet cheddar and mozzarella!

Oh heeeey sausages, sliced turkey!

Korean Costco also has an incredible selection of seafood.  Korea is really serious about seafood.

Yep, mussels (or something) in seawater.

Lots of sashimi (raw fish on rice), no sushi (raw fish and rice in a seaweed roll).

Buy a whole octopus!

Or a few squids!

The fruit and vegetable selection didn't impress me much in the summer.  It seemed like Costco sold all the same stuff as the normal stores, and at the same prices.  Now that it's winter, the game has changed. Koreans have a strange love-hate relationship with foreign products.  They love foreign stuff because it's cool and exotic (and expensive) but at the same time they also feel a strong need to buy Korean-made products.  Electronics and produce are the two major industries in Korea that are dominated by domestic goods.  The Korean peninsula has basically the same climate as Michigan, which means that there's not much in the way of fruit in winter.

Costco imports a lot of its products, including fruit.  So now that it's winter, Costco is the best source of affordable fruit.  Two avocados costs about $12 at my local grocery store, but I can get five for $11 at Costco.  I eat a lot of guacamole and salmon-avocado sushi, so I go through a lot of avocados.  I can also get the giant bag of Kirkland tortilla chips, which is fabulous because Korea seems to think that those round flat yellow discs (the ones that come with that hot fake cheese) are real tortilla chips.  They are not.

Nectarines!  Costco might be the only place in Korea with these.

Don't forget that this is Korean Costco, so they've also got some distinctly Korean products.  Among them are fish-flavored chips (disgusting), meat sauces, dried fish... and frankly a lot of things I know nothing about.

Not sure what this is, but I guess it's healthy?

Big bag of very small dried fish.

Cereal is pretty ubiquitous in Korea, but finding real American brands and not their Korean knockoffs is hard.  Thank goodness for Costco.

These are really hard to find outside of Costco!

Real cornflakes (not the sugary kind though), and I'm not sure what the lego-looking thing is.

Post cereal!

Costco is the only sensible place to buy butter and cream cheese in Korea.  At the grocery stores you'll pay this much for a 200g taste.

OH HEYYYY COSTCO COOKIES AND MUFFINS!  Costco is the only place to get muffins and soft cookies.  There's lots of rock-hard flavorless cookies here... Koreans seem to be very interested in how their baked goods look and less concerned with how they taste.

Sometimes you need a soft cookie.

Korean Costco's muffins aren't as sweet as the American ones, but they are starting to taste normal to me.  Koreans use a lot less sugar than Americans.

Delicious and so affordable!!!

Less affordable are nuts.  Nuts are so expensive in Korea, and Costco is no exception.  A bag of trail mix costs about $12 in the USA, but here it's $25.  Yikes!

Trail mix, I'll miss you.

And now for the real reason I go to Costco... the snacks.  It's different than the American Costco range, not as diverse, but offers a more international selection.  You can get Tim Tams, for example.

Cheese puffs!  Goldfish!

Animal crackers, the best in the world!

I don't even know.

Gummi bears, mostly.

More gummies.

Marshmallows and... more gummies?!

Expensive, but available.

Chocolate-covered raisin and almonds and cherries for cheap!  Peanut butter cups for not-so-cheap!

OH-REE-OHHHHHS.

Werther's.

Fruit By The Foot!  Expensive, though.

One more thing of note: Korean Costco is INSANELY BUSY.  I took the advice of a coworker and was there when it opened at 8am on a Saturday.  This is what the place looked like at about 8:15am.  Within an hour, it was so crowded that I could barely get through the aisles.  On another Costco trip with a friend in the afternoon, we abandoned the cart altogether and ended up waiting nearly 45 minutes at the checkout.  Koreans LOVE Costco, and they pack in like sardines in a can.

If you go, go as early as possibly.  Seoul locations are open 8am-10pm and 8am-6pm on Sunday.  Other locations open at 9am and close at the same times.

Blissful, peaceful emptiness.  It won't last more than a few minutes.

Even at 9:15, there was a line for the escalator.  Did I mention that Korean Costco is two levels?
Non-food items on top, foodstuffs on the bottom.

A short list of things not pictured that Costco also sells that ARE worth buying:
- corndogs and churros
- bags of frozen fruit
- ice cream
- BAAAACOOOOOON!!!  (Bacon.)
- frozen seafood, chicken breasts, and burgers
- plain yogurt (impossible to find elsewhere!)
- whipped cream (only light, unfortunately for fatties like me)
- wine, soju, and a few other alcoholic beverages
- cleaning supplies
- pancake/waffle mix
- peanut butter, jelly, and honey
- oatmeal (can't find it anywhere else)


Things NOT worth buying:
- clothes --> they're so expensive!
- electronics --> not cheap, and K-Costco has a 30-day return policy on electronics (90 days in the USA)
- skin/bath products --> same prices at regular stores (with the exception of Q-tips)
- bread (unless you eat 5-10 sandwiches a day)


Things that are outright missing:
- my favorite snacks (reeses, twizzlers, fruit snacks, and skittles.)
- some fruits (no strawberries or limes!)
- baking supplies (they sell flour, but no chocolate chips)
- a half-decent electronics selection
- a WEBSITE.  The Korean Costco website tells you where they are located... and that's it.
- clothes in Western adult sizes (all the clothes are Asian size)

I bet you thought I was being a racist when I said all the clothes were Asian sized, didn't you?

And last but not least: the food court.  In America, Costco food is delicious, cheap, and fast.  It's still cheap here, but somewhat lacking in the departments of delicious and fast.

I got the hot dog set.  Cheap... but not super delicious.

Much like the subway, Koreans pack into the food court so tightly that I'm 100% sure it violates fire safety codes.  They line their carts up along the wall--stealing isn't much of an issue here, which is really nice--and cram whole families in to one two-seater table.

This is a slow day at the Korean Costco food court.  Notice how many people are standing to eat?

Another popular thing to do: put your kid in a cart and let them fall asleep.  Among your other items.  Carts here do have the child seat, but I have yet to see a single person use it.  Korean parents are startlingly unaware of the potential dangers of crushing one's child.  What's more, remember how I said they park the carts and leave them unattended?  Yeah, they do that with the kids inside too.  There were five or six sleeping children in carts last time I was there.

This isn't actually Costco, this is Lotte Mart.  Note the smaller cart size.
The cart isn't full yet--mama is still packing on the groceries.

Same kid, about to be harshly awoken by a pizza to the face.

This is actually at the Costco checkout.  They're about to start burying their children in bulk food products.
Kid on the right it sleeping, and he's already got a few items shoved in with him.

For all I know, they bought this at Costco.  Dogs are less of pets and more like dolls here, so
it's entirely possible.  Then again, if they DID buy it at Costco, it'd probably come in a three-pack.

Anyway, back to Korean Costco's food court.  They have most of the normal food court stuff--pizza, hot dogs, corndogs, smoothies--but also a few special Korean items.  One such item is the bulgogi bake, which sounds good but tastes like a hobo's butt.

Bulgogi should be delicious... this tasted like greasy, overcooked stale dogfood.

We both took one bite and immediately felt ill.  I made him throw the rest away.
I can't imagine anyone liking this, let alone being able to finish it without vomiting.

We also saw this phenomenon in the food court: chopped onions with mustard and relish.  That's right, it's a side dish.  That yellowish mass is just onions, mustard, and relish.  Honest.  I watched him make it.

This has been posted on my blog before but it's weird enough to be deserving of a review.

I think that about sums up the Korean Costco experience.  There's just one more thing you have to see to believe:

Koreans are in love with Spam... but only because they think Americans love it.
I'm trying to spread the truth, that we think it's a disgusting sham of a ham.  (Har har har... but seriously.  Ew.)

That's right, Spam gift set.  Don't worry, I just threw up a little too.  It's the normal, appropriate reaction.


Until next time,

- Ashton / 애쉬톤