First Saturday in Gwangju

     Saturday we left early in the morning to do some exploring. We took the bus from our house to U-square, which is the Gwangju bus station. It also has a huge department store called Shingsae attached to it that has a multitude of stores, from high-end designer stores to the Gap. Attached is also an IMAX theatre, a huge food court, and E-mart, which is another Walmart-type store. Didn't buy any clothes this time trip, but we will see how I hold out after the first paycheck arrives.


    After we got home we decided to venture out in our nearby neighbourhood to explore the streets. Restaurants, hair salons, and little Kwik-E-marts flank every street corner. There are an excessive amount of these businesses and they are never full so it is a wonder that they manage to stay open. Just walking around there is so much to see and look at. On Saturday alone we probably clocked 5km on foot.  It is the perfect time of year to walk around, just in time for all the leaves to start turning but still mild enough to stay warm. 


    We capped off our night by watching the rugby world cup at a co-workers place followed by a trip to downtown. The first stop was a new Korean restaurant right downtown where we ate pork cooked at the table with a multitude of side dishes that were all amazing and lots of terrible beer. After, we crossed the street to a place called Bubble Bar where both foreigners and Koreans party till late in the morning. Unfortunately there are no pictures from that part of the night but perhaps that is a good thing. Downtown is quite amazing but it's different than you would expect. There are no skyscrapers but a lot more foot traffic. The alleys are wall to wall people walking and lots of little boutiques that stay open really late. We didn't get much of a chance to explore downtown but perhaps next weekend. 

Mystery meat seems to always come on a stick

At the food court at Shingsae, only $2!