Sunday, October 15, 2006

Anti-Social Walking

As you may have noticed, I do a lot of walking. How else am I going to find new and interesting things to take pictures of, hmmm? Well, I intended to go to todays DAWG meeting, although I didn't make it. I had decided to got downtown about two hours early to do some more exploring... and explore I did. First, I wandered around the area just to the west of the downtown center that is home to the Daegu Herb Medicine Market. Sadly, I had neglected to look it up before setting out, and discovered a little too late that all the stores in the district are closed on Sundays. Whoops. I did, discover a cool little park with fountains shaped like giant tea kettles, although it was too small to occupy me for long. Since I had some time to kill, I decided to stroll down to Seomun Market. I ran across some middle aged white dudes who greeted me with strastvuite, but who seemed completely floored when I answered them in kind! Then I had a minor panicky feeling that they might try to actually talk to me (sometimes I'm pretty anti-social, and I've picked up some incredibly creepy Russian dudes in Daegu in the past), so I essentially dove into the most crowded section of the market I could find in order to lose them. I wandered around the market for a while (and saw at least three separate stands selling the Trouble Everyday shirt!), and was quite enjoying myself until I found myself in the section where they were selling chickens, other fowl, rabbits and puppies. For eating. That was really depressing, and I stood there for a little while looking at the cage of puppies thinking about trying to buy one. If their owner had tried to sell me one, I probably would have snapped one up, but he didn't. Instead he just stared at me, and I got the feeling that he knew I was judging him and that he was judging me in return. Not really a friendly vibe. I scurried off, although seeing those little puppies definitely put a damper on my mood. At that point, I had roughly enough time to make it to the DAWG meeting, but I was no longer remotely in the mood to hang out with people I barely know... so, I took the long way back to the subway and headed for home.

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Entering the herbal market area


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Park with the giant tea kettles


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Entrance to Seomun Market


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The market was crowded!


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Inside Seomun Market


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Gineseng? Inside Seomun Market.

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