Street Sellers

One thing I love about Seoul (and I mean this about Korea in general...I just happen to be a little Seoul-centric) is the street sellers. I don't really trust the food they sell on the side of the road (except ice cream) but virtually everything else is fair game for me. For example, to get ready for my trip to Canada and generally stock up, in the last two weeks I bought:

2 plants in a can for my nieces (8,000 won)
2 lightweight sports shirts for inlining (10,000 won for both)
1 pair of shorts for inlining (20,000 won)
3 bags of dried 고구마 (goguma, sweet potatoes or yams, they were selling 1 for 3,000 won , 2 for 5,000 but I got 3 for 6,000)
1 tie (at an amazing price of 5,000 won, or USD 4...and I can't really tell how it's worse than the ones I bought for USD 100 back home.)
10 disposible razors (for 1,000 won, or USD 0.80 FOR ALL TEN)
1 noise-making toy hammer for boy #2 (1,000 won)
3 Disney photo albums (but I'm sure ol' Walt didn't make a penny on these....just 1,000 won each)

The clothes-seller guy spoke pretty good English...I know because he held my hostage for 5 minutes as we talked about how Korean men are getting fatter (hence his stock of larger sizes for husky guys like me) and how he learned English working for the US Army about 20-30 years ago. The goguma-guy didn't know a lot of English, but he did speak Spanish owing to the fact that he lived in Argentina for a few years. Unfortunately, Spanish is not one of my languages...I know a fair bit of French from my school-days, a smattering Japanese and, of course, some Korean. Anyways, when I passed the goguma-guy later in the week I gave him a big "hola!" (Spanish for hello, and the extent of my proficiency) and he returned one as well...wow, bridging the cultures with another one...how UN of me.

Below is a picture of the famous Yeouido tie-truck. This guy stops in the hotspots and unloads silk and polyester ties on neckwear-hungry salarymen.


Here they are: 2 for 5,000 won (USD 4.50)!