korean shopping

i live in dongdaemun and we're the capital of shopping for the city. there are pretty much a zillion department stores and vendors. it's also pretty neat to see all sorts of different independent designers that set up their spaces and sell all of their custom-made clothing. mind you, i'd never wear anything they make because it's all very extravagant and full of weird sayings and of course, i probably would struggle with sizing too.
i went to the yongsan electronics market yesterday and that was the same deal. it was ten floors of electronics vendors (computers on one floor, video games on another, appliances, phones, etc.). i got a used phone that i'm pretty happy with. it's pretty sweet and i got it for about $100. you could get used phones for as little as about 30,000 krw to upwards of 500,000. i wanted something half decent though because i'm a bit of a gadget whore. it's pay-as-you-go so with a 10,000 krw card you can get about 300 texts or 27 minutes of talk time. incoming calls are free luckily but it definitely pays to text which fortunately, i'm used to. to get a contract here you have to be korean. i guess too many foreigners have skipped out on their contracts in the past. damn them all.

at night i went to insadong with other english teachers from my residence. bob, jason, alison and nicole (who lives out near hongdae but we don't judge). we walked through insadong and stumbled upon a batting cage, stumbled out of a couple bars, and ended our night at noribong (korean karaoke). although hesitant, it was actually a lot of fun. i'll do it again, not going to lie. more pictures here.