Shopping in Korea

Saturday morning I awoke feeling refreshed and excited! I decided that my first weekend in South Korea would be spent shopping for the various odds-and-ends and food that I needed to make my apartment feel like home. And I absolutely could not sleep on the mystery sheets any longer! So off to shop I went...easier said than done!

I left my apartment around 9:00 am with a hand-drawn map to Wal-Mart (yes, folks, there is a Wal-Mart here...even though I am a Target girl through-and-through, I have to admit there's something exciting about having a piece of Sam Walton and redneck America here with me!). An hour later, after many wrong turns and scenic routes, I finally arrived at the goliath Wal-Mart. Heaven! I walked in, tried to grab a cart, and to my dismay, they were all locked up...What?! I soon discovered that I had to pay for the cart. Thus began my shopping escapade in the Pyeongchon Wal-Mart.

First stop: Bed linens. I thought I'd just get a nice fitted sheet and a good bedspread. Ha! They don't sell sheets in Korea...no fitted sheets, no flat sheets, nothing! And bedspreads were $65. What ever happened to the Wal-Mart staple--the bed-in-a-bag??? After much deliberation, I settled on this fitted sheet thing that doubles as the bed cover...I have to cover up with blankets at night. Surely when the weather drops below freezing I'll wimp out and buy a bedspread, but until then, the blankets do just fine. And making the bed every morning is a breeze!

Somehow I managed through Wal-Mart, buying towels and rugs and the like, until finally it was time for the scariest shopping experience of my life: The Food Section! By this point, I was so exhausted and so ready to get out of there, that I threw anything that looked slightly familiar into my cart, including cereal, peanut butter, chicken fingers, milk, jelly, and white bread. Healthy, right? And nope, no wheat bread or skim milk here.

Five hours later....I finally stepped up to the cash register with my purchases. My cart was overflowing with everything imported and anything American...and the final bill showed it...$465 US...Ouch!

Well, here's where the day just got bad...the girl at the register didn't give me bags...I looked around and realized that no one had their purchases in bags. Now remember, I had probably 100 items in my cart. I rolled the cart out, hailed a taxi, and together the taxi driver and I loaded it up with my stuff. I hopped in the front seat, handed him a paper with my home address written in Korean on it, and felt proud of myself. That's when I found out that cabbies do not know addresses. I had to point the directions to him the whole way home, while he's yelling at me in Korean at the top of his lungs. Finally, we reached home sweet home...we unloaded the mounds of items on the curb, he charged me double since he "threw his shoulder out," and I lugged my stuff up three flights of floors armful by armful.

If you ever come to Korea and go shopping, here's a bit of advice:

1. Always take someone who knows what's what so you don't buy the wrong things.
2. Take the time to buy Korean items and avoid imports at all cost...unless you want to go bankrupt.
3. And finally, when you arrive at the register, and the salesperson says something to you in Korean, just nod your head fervently and say "YES, PLEASE!" She's asking if you'd like bags.

An Entrance to the Underground Sidewalks.