Day 26. Some days you just have to take it easy. Today was one of those days. It started for me with a sumptuous buffet lunch, then shopping, then nap, then John’s choral performance at Mapo Art Center finishing with a quick dinner and more shopping. Let me not forget the yes, emergency vanilla latte stop in there too.

Yes, compared to other days, today was slacker Friday (despite hitting 10,000 steps!). But let me not so quickly discount shopping as a cultural experience. Allow me to explain.

Now yesterday, after the Folk Museum and Royal Palace, we went to the Antique markets. This market is located on nice windy pedestrian street with shops on both sides selling beautiful items such as handmade paper, linen fashions, hand-crafted desserts and even hand-made cards. Typical place one might encourage tourists to visit to pick up that little extra something for their living room that allows them to subtly and nonchalantly share their world travels. (Think, “oh yes, we picked that up on our trip to Korea, oh, boy, did I just leave that there instead of a coaster which would be much more practical right now, Mr. Random-Guest-To-My-Home. “Oh you haven’t been to Korea; now, now, here’s my photo album, wood artifact, etc. etc. I must share right now!”)

You know you know someone like this.

But today we hit were actual locals shop! Where they shop for their food, their hardware and their clothing.

Today’s first shopping experience was just a few blocks from our hotel. Our tour guide walked us over there and told us you can pretty much find anything there. The maze went down 300 feet in every direction that I had to quell the “oh, no, the kids are going to get lost in here” mom-fear-voice. There must have been several hundred — if not a thousand — mom-and-pop shops. Talk about a great place to teach and learn the concept of business. Each shop was about 10 feet by 20 feet with a few tables in the front to entice the casual shopper inwards. Street food was readily available at around 50+ shops and several vendors proudly displayed “As seen on Netflix” because apparently several of them have been featured on TV or in movies.

In some ways, you feel like you are taking a step back in time. The time before Walmart, McDonalds, and Door-dash.. From fish to Korean dishes to clothes to shoes to stainless steel chaffing dishes and delicate china teacups, pretty much every shop was fully dedicated to their speciality ware. Walking around the crowded aisles we noticed our group represented the only obvious foreigners floating around - so we were happy to be somewhere where the locals shopped.

Later in the evening at the “Night Markets” — officially the PM Market — we witnessed the new way young people preferred to shop. 7 floors of speciality designer more “mall-like” “stalls” roughly the same size and perfectly displaying the wares of these shop keeper in neat rows.

Same concept, roughly the same size retail space, maybe an equal number of shops (well over 200+ shops), and even in the same area of Seoul - just a few blocks away but noticeably world’s apart in presentation. The Night Markets stalls were almost boring in neutral colors in the contemporary displays. The items were the display clearly. The beautiful presentation was a marked difference from colorful, fragrant and kinetic street food vendors of earlier in the day which had a more chaotic feel.

Both were super crowded, both specialized, but very different shopping experiences. Hopefully the photos will give you a sense of old and new. We truly appreciated and frequented both! What a gift to experience Korean shopping culture.

AND THE SINGING, YES, THE SINGING

The first performance of the NCC tour was tonight at Seoul’s Mapo Art Center where approximately 120 vocalists from the US performed the first of their five-city tour performances. Tonight’s performance combined with a prestigious Korean-based Chamber Orchestra. It sounded beautiful and once again our son brings magic into our lives through his passion for and participation in music.