7 March 2015
Overwhelmed
The colorful shopping streets of Daegu
I am happy to admit, I am overwhelmed by Daegu. Sounds a bit sentimental I know.
When I walked to my hotel from the train station, everything was as I expected, a 2nd tier city, lots of concrete, roller doors in front of closed shops, a few convenience stores and restaurants with plastic tables and chairs.
A lot like the neighbourhood areas of Taiwan.
My hotel reinforced my view, around the proximity of my hotel theres a bunch of old guys sitting about, people selling fruit on rugs, the occasional suicidal scooter rider ignoring the oncoming truck, shops selling random lengths of pipe.
Well all that changed.
As soon as I crossed the road from the main side of the station, it became apparent that this place is a giant retail mecca. I dont know how the population of 2.5 million can sustain it all.
The further I went the brighter and busier everything became. By my estimations its a bigger denser conglomeration of Neon than Myeongdong in Seoul or Shibuya in Tokyo.
I didnt walk down many of the streets, but occasionally I walked underground, and then found myself 5 levels underground, disorientated, only to surface somewhere completely different.
Despite 2.5 hours walking, I never really found the end. At one stage I found an actual road, the entire centre of town is pedestrian only, apart from sneaky scooter riders, or assholes in Lamborghinis or similar who think driving through masses of people at walking pace is a fun night out.
Anyway, I crossed that road, only to find more of the same. It is not just one street, much like Myeongdong its a grid of pedestrian streets, with a ridiculous amount of expensive coffee shops full of people.
Sorry the above rant had very little humor, I have returned to my strange hotel room, and all my stuff is still here, so thats a bonus.
The start of it all, at this stage I was thinking, cool, I can surely find somewhere here to feed me.
Starting to get busier as I go further, the whole place is also very clean.
Not entirely sure what was going on here, a line of people waiting to try their luck at whatever that skill tester game is doing. When some girls got something to come out of it, a surge of people tried to snatch the prize out of the chute before they could get it.
The Hyundai department store resembles the borg cube. I believe it goes 3 levels under ground, with at least 40 places to eat. Very modern fit out.
Truth in advertising at its finest.
In amongst all the shiny modern, there were still some winding tunnels of old markets too. Each of them smelt like a different dead sea creature.
Have only been eating bananas lately, so needed to add some different fruit to my diet. What better than some candied strawberrys.
Surely this snack would prove popular in Australia?
Segways are still a thing it seems. Despite the death of the owner of the Segway company, in a Segway accident. Check it out on wikipedia!
I decided to risk my life and rented a segway and rode over to Sexycookie, got to get me some chocolate chip.
This plae is Sichuan fusion. If you are familiar with a Sichuan hotpot, basically chillis floating in chilli oil with bits of meat swimming in it, this is exactly that, but then coated in cheese.
I breifly considered having it, but its more a meal to share.
Instead for my dinner I had a leek pancake. More like an omlette, but with a lot of filling. The filling whilst primarily leeks also contained random crustaceans and associated sea creatures.
I must admit, it was delicious! The ordering process required a trip outside to point at the pictures, but the lady taking my order seemed well practiced in this routine.
As I was nearing completion the old guy who cooked it came out with a beaming smile and looked at me for approval. I gave him a thumbs up, which seemed to make his day.
For my mother, heres a 3 level mister donut store. Also, please note, Daegu has public toilets everywhere, and signs on most street corners showing the direction and distance to the nearest one.
Thats your 2 criteria for visiting Korea ticked off I think?
For my dessert I decided to have one of these giant macaron ice cream things. I elected for taro macaron with durian ice cream.
Just kidding, I wanted one of these but am way too sensible.
This is a korean junk candy shop. Grab a bucket, fill it with the boxes of chocolate and whatever piled on the floor, then weigh your bucket.
I filled 2 buckets.
The brilliant white light acts as a mind control beam, clouding your judgement, you then leave wondering why you have a bucket full of crap you now have to eat.
All of this, plastic.
Everyone needs a plastic display octopus for their store window.
On my way back now, and a local baseball team ran on stage to receive the key to the city or something.
Their coach then tried his best to humiliate them, by screaming orders which the team had to follow, either singing a stupid song, doing a dance, slapping each other on the ass, doing push ups, robot impersonation, this all showed no signs of ending soon when I had lost interest and moved on.
Just one of many streets I didnt go down.