A Simple Walk

Not the best picture but one of my best food finds in awhile. While eating a lunch of rapookie with a side dish of kimchee, the owner of the restaurant gave me a free roll of kimbap. I decided to dip the kimbap in the rapookie and put a slice of kimchee on top.
It was glorious.

Afterwards, I remembered hearing that it is supposedly only a 45 minute walk from school to home, I decided I would try it out. I set off in the direction of the subway line and enjoyed looking here and there.

I passed a building materials storage area with a good supply of bamboo. This was quickly followed by a residential area and then a small park.

Instead of trying to be located away from your competition, in Korea and China there is sometimes the idea to be located as close as you can to your competition. You get enough of the same product stores located next to each other and now the area is know for having that product. While certain streets in Korea might have, say, a lot of metal shops located next to each other, China will have entire cities with the same product that they manufacture, example: bed spreads or pillows. Now the area has a reputation and people will come from farther away to visit your area to buy your product.

Saw some veggies for sale and I even found where they make those stereotypical street vendor carts that sell dopoukie!

Passed a home with a short door and then a few blocks away passed store after store with hand held power tools. I could have sworn I was in China with how this store was laid out. Fifty feet later I crossed over a nice bridge and was surprised to see how well designed the concrete river was. I will take this any day over the one in LA.

Last photo is of some additional street vendors standing in front of a traditional style wall. I am not sure what was on the other side but am guessing some buildings from the Joseon Dynasty.

I was excited to find a used DVD store among all of this. These were mostly not from rental stores (rental store boxes aren't as good in my opinion) and was able to snag 15 movies for $66. The owner decided to give me a deal and knocked it down to $60 ^_^ so $4 each.

With all of the side trips and detours the walk ended up being 4 1/2 hours long with me walking almost the entire time on a route I have never been and only asking for directions once.