French Christmas Market.

This weekend, two of my friends (Melina and Maria) and I went to what we were told was a French Christmas market. It was in the French quarter of Gangnam (yeah, they have one of those here, and no, there is no chinatown. You have to go north for that one).

I have to say I was pretty excited about being at a Christmas market. I really missed the ones in Germany where you could drink mulled wine, eat real German gingerbread and buy all manner of crafty Christmasy things. Boy was I disappointed. Though it was in the French quarter and run by French nationals, all that was authentically French about it was the contemptuous sneers. They had some books in French and a French bakery selling baked goods at outrageous prices ($6 for an eclair? Non merci), but everything else was just western things that they sell at Lotte Mart or E Mart gathered together.

Maria, who speaks French but has been slowly forgetting it in favor of Korean, was given the 'you, pathetic person, are not French' look by the guy we bought sausages from whom she tried to converse with. This only served to make her more nervous when she tried to speak to the next French person we saw. The next guy, luckily, was very kind and encouraging and got her talking despite her nervousness.

I bought some Gouda and some cute Christmas cards that have Korean themes done in a decidedly French style. We ended the rest of the day shopping at the underground shopping mall in Nambu Bus Terminal. Its surprising how much goes on underground here. It's part of the Korean efficiency thing. There isn't enough space for everything so they've found creative ways to make more room. Having shops and restaurants on the second or third floors (when is the last time you saw that in America?), having large, sprawling shopping complexes entirely under ground, next to the subway. I swear we walked forever and never saw the end of it.

I am, however, almost done with my Christmas shopping. Jealous?

G20

As many of you may know, the G20 summit was held here a week or so ago. And it was pure madness. I'm pretty sure that you didn't see it on the American news, but the protestors were ferocious and viciously treated. People were tear gassed, many went to jail, and one woman set herself on fire in protest of something or other. To protest an international conference of this nature never made much sense to me. They were probably protesting some government's stand on something or other, but it just looks like you are protesting international cooperation which makes you look like kind of an idiot.

The conference was held in Gangnam, which is closer to where I live than the rest of Seoul, and the place was blocked off for miles around. I didn't try to ride the subway there, but if I did, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have stopped at any of the surrounding stops, just cruised through until we were well away from the chaos. All local businesses were closed down for the week, too. The business owners were basically told to take a vacation and offered no compensation, which is, to me, the fact about the conference most worthy of protest. My co-worker's in-laws have a nice Japanese restaurant in the vicinity and they had to shut down, loosing money every night.

The conference was in Co-Ex Mall, which is the biggest indoor shopping complex in Asia. And it is enormous. The first time I went there, I walked for about two hours in one direction, looking for the movie theatre before I found it, and I still didn't hit the end of the place.

I am at the tail end of my stay here in Korea and even though I have a little over three months left, I can't help but think it will go very quickly. My stay so far has gone by so fast, I feel like I just arrived here, tired and disoriented, a week ago.

I still have so much I want to see, even though I feel like I've seen a lot. I've missed some of Korea's most famous sights: castles, temples, the french quarter in Gangnam (oh yeah, they have one of those here), the 63 bulding, the Co-ex aquarium, Namsan Tower, even the Kimchi museum sounds like it would be a blast. I mean, where else am I going to find a Kimchi museum? Curiously, three out of those sights are in Gangnam, so maybe that's what I should do next weekend...