Day 272

MARKET DAY

Just a few steps away from Namchuncheon Station is what foreigners call the 2-7 Market.  The market gets its name from its operating schedule; it's open on days that end in 2 or 7, meaning that it's open once every five days.  Yesterday was the 17th, and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and cheap produce.  (The market is also closer to my apartment than the grocery store is, so no excuses.)

So, what does the 2-7 Market have to offer?

Animals!  For the first time, I saw live animals for sale at the market.  Kittens, puppies, chicks, and ducklings.  So cute!

Awwww.

Double awwwww!

You can buy clothes!  The textile industry helped launch South Korea into economic prosperity, and it's still a very popular industry today.  Cheap clothes, socks, scarves, etc. are available just about everywhere in Korea.  There is high-end stuff too, of course, but for people like me (that it, uber-cheap people) it's a shopping haven.  The only problem is that absolutely none of the Korean clothes fit me.  Korean clothes for women are made to create hips, and I've already got hips, so I end up looking like a bloated whale in anything I try on.

Jackets and pants for cheap!  Koreans, especially middle-aged and older Koreans, love to wear hiking gear.  All the time.

There's a big market for used clothing.  At least, I'm pretty sure all this stuff is pre-loved.  Either that, or these ajummas (old Korean women) are skilled at picking completely random stuff to sell.

The sign "5000" means "5000 won," which is about five dollars.

Koreans also love hats, to keep the sun off their faces.  Being tan is basically a sin here.  Many people wear long sleeves, pants, reflective visors, and scarves up to their eyes.  It's like being in a country full of bank robbers.

You can also buy freshly-fried snacks like donuts, mandu (Korean-style dumplings), hotteok (a cinnamon-sugar filled pancake), and assorted other goodies.

I'm pretty sure these are mandu.

Hotteok!  I love hotteok.  They're sweet and cinnamony and hot!

I don't even know what this is.  I try not to eat deep-fried food (except for donuts, of course).

I don't know what's in these smoothies but it looks pretty toxic.

Cooked silkworm larvae, "bondaegi," is popular in Korea, but I was happy that the bondaegi lady wasn't around today because the smell makes me nauseous.  I did see cooked snails though!

Thankfully, much less smelly than bondaegi.

You can also buy acorn jelly and tofu.  Many elderly Koreans support themselves by collecting the naturally-growing produce and selling it.  All the mushrooms, acorn jelly, ginko, and many of the herbs and greens are collected from the forest or just along the roads.  It's very common to see older men and women searching for mushrooms while hiking, and I usually see women snipping greens from the side of the road while I'm running.  Many Koreans also have small farms, and sell the produce at markets or in subway stations.

The brown stuff is acorn jelly.  The white stuff is tofu, but they call it "dubu" here.  "Doo-boo."

A woman with her hand-picked greens.

Lots of salad stuff!

That is an awful lot of garlic.  In the front we've got tubers of some kind (ginger?) and hazelnuts are on the left.

More tubers.

There's fresh seafood!  You can buy a variety of fish, shrimp, squid, and octopus at the market.

Fresh fish on the sides, fresh squid in the middle.  It's all on ice.

Dried fish is really popular here too.

I'm not a big fan of dried fish.  Or fish in general.

Dried tiny fish!  These are used more for seasoning than snacks.

You can get big sheets of dried seaweed.  I think these big thick ones are for soup, but you can also buy the super-thin ones that Koreans use for kimbap.  Kimbap looks a lot like sushi, but they're actually pretty different.  Kimbap uses regular dried seaweed, plain rice, and often contains pickled radish.  Sushi uses roasted dried seaweed, rice seasoned with vinegar and sugar, and usually contains raw fish and veggies.  I really hate kimbap, it tastes fishy.  It's super cheap though, and I wish I liked it because I could have a lot cheaper meals!

Seaweed!

A closer look.

There's also spicy raw crab, called "ganjang gejang" in Korean.  "Ganjang" means "soy sauce" and "ge" means crab.  There's also a spicy version ("mae-oon gejang") and a seasoned version ("yang nyeom gejang").  I haven't personally tried it yet, but it all looks delicious and very messy.  I'll try it soon!

Lots of varieties of crab!

This is the spicy version.  The water bottle is full of ice, to keep the crabs cool in the hot weather.

This is the soy sauce version.

This is a version with lots of itty-bitty baby crabs.  Yum!

This vendor also sold a variety of kimchis.  Kimchi is basically any fermented vegetable.  Most varieties are spicy, but some are not.  The most well-known kind is made from cabbage, or "baechu" in Korean.

Lots of kimchi.  LOTS.  Koreans love this stuff.  (And so do many foreigners!)

Some different varieties of kimchi.  You could live here for years and never taste every kind!

There's also many varieties of grains and beans available.  Rice is really popular here, but it's not the only grain!  They're sold in bags out of large buckets.

Beans and grains!

More grain buckets!

A closer view of the grain.  Not sure what the bottom left bucket is full of.

You can buy plants and grow everything yourself, too.

Flowers, cacti, and veggies.  Get 'em all here!

You can buy wood too.  I think the wood is used to impart flavor in certain recipes, but honestly, I don't know.

Wood, wood, wood.

Even more wood.

Oh, right, there's also fruits and veggies.  Nothing too exotic, I'm afraid.  For veggies, they usually sell onions, zucchini, green squash, bell peppers, chili peppers, broccoli (but never cauliflower), and lettuce/greens.  For fruits, you can find apples, grapes, strawberries, small yellow melons (not sure what these are yet, must investigate), bananas (very expensive, like buck each), watermelons (SO EXPENSIVE HERE, I paid 10 bucks for one and thought that was an amazing deal, I've seen them for up to $25) and sometimes pineapples and Korean pears (which are a lot bigger and tastier than Western pears).  If you want exotic fruits (like coconuts, avocados, mangos, and pineapples) it's a safer bet to go to the grocery store or foreign food market.

Peppers,  Everybody loves peppers here, they're super cheap.

There's enormous bags of dried red chili peppers.  These are used to make gochujang,
a popular paste made from fermented peppers.

I didn't actually take any photos of the fruits, but here's some veggies.

That brown thing?  I have no idea what it is.

This is a repeat photo, but you can see a fruit seller in the background.  See how all the fruit is in bowls?

You can also buy a variety of cheap kitchen items from China.

Seriously, everything you need to fill a kitchen.

There's even live entertainment!

These ladies were singing beautifully.  There were also some guys singing later.
I think they were singing traditional Korean folk music.

That about sums up the market experience!  Thankfully I don't need much Korean to get what I want.  Most of the items have signs with prices, and if not, I can just point and ask "Eol-mayo?"  Easy-peasy.

There was just one item that I wanted that I couldn't find at the 2-7 Market: cilantro.  I've been craving some pico de gallo, and you can't make it without cilantro!  Fortunately, there's an itty-bitty foreign food mart in Chuncheon that has it: World Mart!

The Korean on the sign says "World Mart."

This is a tiny, tiny shop really close to M Department Store in Myeongdong.  (Chuncheon Myeongdong, not the big one in Seoul.)  To find it, just follow the delicious scent of curry.

World Mart is at the intersection between M Department Store and the big Myeongdong Indoor Market.

World Mart doesn't have a great selection.  It's got cilantro, lemons, and a ton of curry stuff.  It's mostly Indian and Thai items.  I found an amazing dried-sweetened-coconut snack there once, but it wasn't there last time I went.

That sums up the Chuncheon market experience!  It's crowded, hot, and reeks of fish, but it's also a good place to practice speaking Korean.  The vendors are generally pretty helpful if they're not busy.  Now that it's warm, the market should be around every five days!  More fresh fruit and veggies for me!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton