Last weekend...

Last weekend we attempted to find the furniture street in Sadang. Since Koreans basically don't use street names, it can get a little tricky trying to find new places. Our directions were given to us by our wonderful landlord, Mr. Young. Of course, since they were driving directions, and we still don't have a car, we decided to take the subway instead...and realized when we got off that we had no idea where to go. So we just started walking...and walked...and walked...
We spotted a few stores selling office furniture, and figured we were close, but unfortunately we were wrong. We never actually found what we were looking for that day, but instead ran across a very cool market that sold all sorts of fish, vegetables, fruit, herbs, incense, kimchi, plants, clothing, shoes, drapes, bedding, kitchenware and more! We saw only one other white person the entire day-and got plenty of stares...especially since Rachel is almost 6 feet tall! But everyone was nice-curious, but nice-and there were several people who tried out their English on us. We got a lot of "Hello people!" It was really quite a fun adventure.
Another thing I noticed on this day out was that Korean children wander around the city by themselves...and I mean 6 and 7 year olds out playing and riding their bikes with no adult in site. A couple days ago I saw a group of 5 little girls holding hands and walking down the street from our apartment building. Again, not an adult in sight...because there is virtually no crime in this city. Children can be seen wandering around the city even as late as midnight. And the Korean people are notoriously fond of children. They consider a child to be everyone's responsibility to raise, and you can expect perfect strangers to want to hold your children. This of course probably would freak out the average American kid, but Korean children have a great respect for their elders, and a great trust that is so different from what we're used to at home.