Myeong-dong on a Wednesday

So there has not been all that much exciting going on here: SOSDD. Im doing a lot of sitting in my office with no students to teach and counting down the days until it warms up a bit. Im getting a lot of random photo blog reading in, brushing up on my Korean and studying up on my Flash programing in preparation for some serious website building. These pictures were on a day trip I took into Seoul yesterday after lunch, just to walk around in the camera shops get out by myself and dream a bit. The area of Seoul is Myeong-dong and Damdaemun Market, the latter being Korea's most prized shopping area for traditional market-style bargaining. All in all it was rather uneventful, but I had a great time, and Seoul seemed a bit warmer than Anseong.

This lady was cooking up some traditional Korean street food. The stuff on sticks is my favorite, it's called Odang, and it is some sort of batter made with fish that is baked and then folded and put on a stick and cooked again in broth. The other stuff is like a solid block of rice dumpling, sort of like across between a gummy worm and a noodle--but with rice. They are also very tasty.

Starting with a side note here, the lady in the mask is not uncommon. Although Korean hygiene is lacking in most departments, apparently they can make up for it by wearing a mask.

The two older guys are playing a traditional Korean board game.

So after standing here for about 10 minutes watching these old men sing and jabber on, I decided to point my camera at them and hope for the best. It went ok, but it still have no earthly idea how this game is played or what it is called.

It took a bit of doing to convince people that it was ok to walk through my shot, as it was a crucial part of the composition.

I wish I had a tripod for this one, but I don't so my skies will be blown out until I do. Anyway, this is one of the many streets near Namdaemun Market, and on weekends you can hardly walk though them there are so many people...on top of it all, there are also those who still try to speed through the crowds on scooters, and even those who are bold enough to drive in a car down them. Im not even sure they are roads ever meant for driving.