Nandaemon and Tongdaemon

I went to South Korea sometime in 1998. It was for 3-weeks course. The course was good and they brought us around.

More importantly, was what did we do with the free time at hand. For me and a friend, we decided to shop at the two famous markets of Seoul. Seoul was and is a fort. At the northern gate is where the Tongdaemon open market operates. It attracts a lot of tourists in the weekend mornings. Nandaemon is th night market and so we have to go early and leave early because the light rapid transit ceased its daily operation for the day.

The interesting thing is how do we haggle on the price. We could not speak Korean and most of the stall-keepers were non-conversant in English. The shopkeepers knew we were foreigners. The will quote fantastic prices in US $ which they will show us on a calculator. So, if you need something, you will use his calculator to offer a bargain price. He will give you another price somewhere in between and if that did not work, he will mumbled something in Korean and stop entertaining us.

Anyway I bought a pair of boots for my son. His feet were too stiff to use it and so a cousin got it as a gift from us.