Seoul, being the largest city in South Korea, has a lot of different districts to explore. In the short period that is one semester it might not be possible to see all of them when factoring in other school responsibilities. I've been to the capital a number of times, and this week I'll tell you some things about another part of the city. This week: Dongdaemun.

As you exit the Dongdaemun subway station, one of the first things you'll see Namdaemun Gate. This historical site was the victim of an arson attack in 2008 by a disgruntled, drunken Seoul citizen with greivances against the government. So far it's still under reconstruction, and may take a couple more years to complete in an appropriate manner. As such you cannot visit the gate at this time, but it still presents an impressive sight from afar.

One of the features of Dongdaemun that you may not hear about as much is this stream that runs down the middle of the market area. It's actually Cheonggyecheon stream, built when current South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak was a city chairman. Its construction increased Lee's popularity and helped him win the presidency. Now president Lee is embattled by a populace that is hesitant or outright opposed to his Four Rivers plan, which involves building dams that will harm Korea's natural beauty.

The stream itself runs 5.8 km through Seoul, including Dongdaemun. There are many places to sit and cool off by the stream, and just sitting and listening to the water pass by is quite peaceful. After a long day of walking around the area it's an ideal spot to rest and enjoy the scenery, including the occasional mural. This was something I didn't know existed until I arrived in Dongdaemun, so it can pay off to just go somewhere and look around. You never know what might be waiting for you.

Dongdaemun is most famous for being a center for various street and indoor markets. One of the first ones I found was a block full of book vendors whose stalls were stacked full with tomes. It was really remarkable to see all of the books just sitting out in the open like that, almost more of a warehouse than a market look. Most of the books are in hangul, but you can definitely find an English-Korean dictionary here! Try as I might, I couldn't find one at a bookstore in the US. So when I found several in Dongdaemun I bought myself one to help supplement my study of the Korean language. At 10,000 won it was also cheaper than it would have been in the USA, had an American bookstore carried it. Another thing you can find in the book market is Japanese manga translated into Korean. So if you're on the look out for this, and/or can read Korean and like manga, Dongdaemun should be a stop for you on your trip to Korea.

Another big item in Dongdaemun is clothing, fabric and sewing items (zippers, buttons, etc). Besides these you can also find a number of shops that custom make patches in-store and sell their prodcuts fairly cheap. The above picture was taken outside one of them, and shows how familiar some of these patches are to the Western eye. Just on display there was everything from TGI Friday's to the Nigerian Football Association. I'd assume that if you wanted a patch of something, you could take an image in to one of these shops and have it made for you.

Then there are the fashion markets: huge multi-block, multi-story buildings that are literally stuffed full of all kinds of clothing related items. I only went to the Pyeonghwa Market, so I can't speak for the others you'll find there. From what I saw in Pyeonghwa though, this is the place to get those zippers, buttons or other accoutrements. Also, several booths had nothing but neckties or belts and on the cheap no less. Neckties can be purchased with elastic around them so tying becomes unnecessary! Kind of a different alternative to the clip-on tie.

Elsewhere there are stores full of nothing but hats - baseball caps, fedoras, knit hats, etc. - for reasonable prices. Most of the actual clothing for sale is women's or children's clothing, since those are the higher volume sales items. Some booths sell hanbok, traditional Korean outfits; there's another market in Dongdaemun that specializes in just hanbok too. Some of the prices I saw in Dongdaemun, though, aren't much better than what you could get in another market in Myeongdong or a different city entirely (Cheonan comes to mind). All the same, it's definitely an experience to visit Dongdaemun just to see how many people shop there and how many booths there are.

To illustrate just how vast the Pyeonghwa market is, the below image is useful. As my friend and I were navigating our way through the market, we began to wonder if the market itself would ever end. Down as far as the eye could see, there were more booths, more people. It was almost an optical illusion.