It was hours before date night and I had planned NOTHING. NADA. ZILCH. So I turned to my trusty friend Google, who never disappoints, and came up with the Gwangjang Market. Gwangjang Market was the nation's FIRST market and I have NEVER been. WHAT?!?! Anyway, back to the nation's first market - it is the oldest (duhh) covered market and it is bustling! The market sells mostly textiles, traditional Korean clothing (if you need a Hombak this is the place to go!), herbal medicines and vintage clothing and is only open during the day from 9AM-6PM. Since we arrived after 6PM we didn't get to see much of the selling in action, but from what I have read this is an area that not many tourist visit and it is very old school Korean. But what we went for wasn't the shopping. We went for the food. Korean street food, oh baby! There is nothing quite like Korean street food!
We started our journey out at the first little store we could find for a little brewsky. And this guy below, well he just cracked us up. I wish I would have gotten a picture from the front. He was having a ball, invited us into his store and just danced around like a total dork without a care in the world. He was awesome.
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We also had a little the pig feet (jokbal)...
True story.
And jokbal aka - pig feet (pictured) tasted like, well pig. No big thang there.
After that things just got interesting. This guy all dressed in white with his spray painted motorcycle and boots, horn blaring came driving through this market where it is hard to even walk around! How he got his motorcycle through these alleys are beyond me. You could tell the people working the stalls were not very happy with him.
I'm sure there are many ways to get to Gwangjang Market, we went by cab/subway -
Jongno-3-ga Station Exit 12.
Walk straight for a few blocks, you will come to a bigger intersection, look to your right and you will see the entrance to the Gwangjang Market.
Enter and walk down the alley for quite a while...you will start seeing food stalls, but don't stop until you hit the mother load and start seeing places to sit and eat. You will know when you have arrived.
Good luck and happy eating!! :)