Say Caleb: Korea Trip Oct 2014 Part 3 (Daegu Seomun Market)

Our first meal in Daegu was really awesome because we were starving from travelling so much so we decided to stuff ourselves crazy by having the authentic Korean BBQ. One thing I realised about Korea is that their buffet is really cheap whereas their individual dishes are really expensive.

We had this for dinner on our first day and it only cost us 10900 won per person for unlimited meat whereas a kimchi stew in another shop would probably cost you about 6000 won. So if you're looking to save money on a Korea trip, start eating buffets.

The thing about visiting Korea in autumn is that the nightfall comes really early. By 6.30pm the sky is already pitch dark. We read online that Banwoldang was the place for nightlife in Daegu but it wasn't that happening afterall. Ended up in Angel-in-us coffee which is a popular coffee chain in Korea to chill our first night away. Maybe we just didn't explore the area enough to seekout the nightspots because the weather was just too cold.

Day 2 lunch isn't the most spectacular one you can expect. We decided to explore our neighbourhood a little and ended up at a random shop for some authentic Korean dishes. With our limited Korean, we managed to order a kimchi jiggae and a bibimbap. I actually felt quite proud because I managed to converse with the ahjuma even though she probably didn't understand what I was saying and was just guessing.

I probably ate more vegetables in this meal than my entire life combined. The only thing that was appetizing to me was the egg and beancurd skin side dish at the top right hand corner of the photo. Nevertheless it was an exciting experience and trying the more mainstream Korean dishes.

Continued exploring through the Dongseongno Street for a while before heading to Seomun Market.

Seomun market is the biggest market in Daegu. They practically sell everything. There are quite a lot of street vendors in Korea selling all sorts of stuff on the roadside ranging from seafood to vegetables even to pots and pans.

So apparently this is where Korea's famous pork come from. Sneakily snapped a photo with the butcher giving me the dagger stare.

I'd like to give special mention to this store located enroute to seomun market from the subway station. This store basically sells really delicious Korean biscuits. Most of them are sugar coated but some of them are savory as well. What really impressed me was the service of this particular store owner (in red). He is like super multilingual and can even guess which country we were from. The funny thing that happened was he gave us a lot of extras that we didn't pay for and the ahjuma that was beside us was unhappy and complained to him. See that plastic bag Petrine is holding? We got that bag filled to the brim for only 5000 won. One thing I realised about Korea is the generosity towards food. People can just walk by and take some of the biscuits without paying and it's regarded as okay.

Seomun market is so big that we couldn't even explore half of it without getting tired or hungry. So we stopped by a food stall for some snacks.

Got myself a sausage wrapped in fishcake and a corn ice cream that has a hollow shell and soft served being injected into the cone. I thought it was pretty unique to eat ice cream that way but soon I realised that this is actually quite popular in Korea and in Seoul, you actually get to choose the flavour you want.

Seomun Market also has several shopping malls inside the market but they generally sell clothes that are for the older generation. There are so many exits for Seomun market that as we walked through it, we vacated from another exit.

After countless hours of walking, we decided to find a random place to sit down and take some pictures. Notice the two sets of pictures above? Both taken at the same place but different direction. We were just too lazy to move. If you'd have notice by now, Petrine is always holding a phone in all the pictures. That's because we are using our new camera, Samsung NX2000 with remote viewfinder so we can see how we look like from the phone. We also have a tripod that we bring around to capture all the scenic places that we go to but most of the time we're given awkward stares.