Maternal Koreanism Part 2: Daejon

We stepped off the train into a nice, albeit brisk, day.

"Does it feel like Korea yet?" I asked in the cab back to my apartment.

"Yes," she said wandering a bit. I could tell that it was really sinking in as we whizzed past all the signs and traffic.

I was happy to get rid of her luggage in my apartment, nearly as happy as I was to finally open her suitcase and see what she brought me: Books, comics, refried beans, tomato soup, vegetarian jerky, and a couple outfits. A good haul.

After lunch, we headed downtown to the Korean markets. One is a modern market underground, while the other is a much more traditional market (and even uses the traditional Korean word for market--Shee-Jang--in its name) in the alleyways.

The underground market is nothing special. Imagine a punch of specialty stores selling cheap crap. Now imagine those stores go on in four directions for about a kilometer each way. If you can picture it, you've got it. Mom liked it, though. She made the interesting point that if you didn't know it was down there, you'd never find it. That sounds pretty obvious, but I guess it's true.

The traditional market is another best entirely. Imagine portable tents. Imagine cheaper than cheap crap. Imagine eels in buckets and sliced up dogs on hooks. Now imagine this for several city blocks. There ya go. Mom bought a supercheap purse up there, but we had to hide from the sliced up dog. So it goes.

The day was rounded out by finding a hotel and having dinner. Mom's hotel in Daejon was much nicer than the one in Seoul and about half the price. One interesting feature was that it had sex toys in a vending machine in the hallway. Kind of surprising since it was an upscale place. Eh, could've been much worse for the price.

Dinner was at the vegetarian restaurant I go to a couple times a week. Good times.

Mom was pretty exhausted by this point and wanted to rest up for mountain climbing...told about in Part 3.