MangoVine
Adventures in East Asia
Overwhelming Dongdaemun Market in Seoul
18 July, 2009Saturday
If I'm honest about Dongdaemun Market, both Linh and I were a little disappointed. It was our first destination on our first full day in Seoul and if the initial downpour of heavy rain didn't damper our enthusiasm, the goods did.
Dongdaemun Market is a huge market area encompassing several large, high-rise malls and the surrounding, marketing-packed streets.
Upon arriving at Dongdaemun Stadium metro station, we covered the fashion and clothing floors of places like the Migliore Mall and the Doota Mall, and settled for lunch at one of the upper floors of the latter.
Our initial impressions came from the clothing on offer. The booths in the malls we visited, each manned by different vendors, ranged from basic in design to refined in style.
The basic stalls piled clothes high and sold them cheap. Every inch was typically utilised and lighting was frequently fluorescent and cold. I found that the typography on this "Fashion Town" banner said it all! If I had to describe what we saw, I could perhaps sum it up as a "local" style.
The Doota mall boasted better interiors featuring retailers with higher price goods and a greater visual shopping experience. But still, nothing stuck out for us, although Linh did buy these pink work out gloves in a nearby street market.
The sheer volume of mini outlets probably didn't help as the overwhelming factor just didn't seem to allow us consideration and time to spend on any particular vendor. We were left with an unfulfilled shopping hunger!
Taking to the streets around Dongdaemun, we came across a lane full of restaurants.
Quite a few of them were serving this red concoction. Anyone know what it is?
More restaurants...
There was also a street dedicated to printing stamps.
Signposted with these giant stamps outside one shop, we initially thought they were bowling pins of some kind...
In other areas of Seoul, we came across more stamps, with the marble ones being particularly popular for tourists to get their names made up on.
In another high-rise mall, the upper levels were clearly still in development and I took the opportunity to shoot these mannequins. Whether they've been discarded or prepared for a forthcoming booth I don't know.
More photos of Dondaemun Market on Flickr.
This entry posted in : Shopping. South Korea.
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In February 2009, Mark and Linh moved from the UK to the Far East to spend 16 months living in Hong Kong and traveling around East Asia. This website documents their journey.
Find out more on the MangoVine About page.
There are 435 entries on MangoVine.
East-Asian places visited so far:
Hong Kong (Throughout 09)
Vietnam (March 09)
Tokyo (May 09)
Macau (June 09)
Taiwan (July 09)
South Korea (July 09)
Singapore (September 09)
Malaysia (September 09)
Thailand (December 09)
Cambodia (December 09)
China (April 10)
