6 April 2019
The real actual city
Eating ramen in central Daejeon
As suggested earlier, tonight I went to the real centre of the city. I missed it until this morning when it was closed, but yeah I already said that earlier.
It is what you would expect, lots of places to eat, lots of places to buy Supreme gear, about a thousand cafes.
The Korean cafe thing is ridiculous. Apparently they had basically none 10 years ago, there was no concept of coffee then. Now there are 4.3 cafes for every person. No really there has to be 10,000 of them in this city. Every street corner has multiple cafes. Some are chains you would recognise, but many seem to me at least to be independent. This evening I walked back to my hotel through some quiet residential streets and on every corner there was a cafe, and most of them had the same antique looking furniture and a bookshelf and a cactus. All of them had the same clientele, young(ish) girls sitting in there staring into a tiny mirror. Honestly, I saw no men, and everyone really was looking into a mirror. So there you go, the thing to do in Korea is to go to a corner cafe, not read a book, look out for the cactus, and stare into a mirror.
I should probably go into one and see what happens, but I cant drink coffee after 12 and none of these places open before 12. Oh well.
Now after that pointless paragraph, not very many pointless photos!
THUMBS DOWN. Here is one of the squillions of cafes. Each time I mention how many there are I multiply it by a thousand.
The main shiny street, full of larger department stores. However dont be fooled, most of the shops in Korea are under the street. Like all Korean cities there are kilometre long malls under the street. Although this area does not have a subway, there is still an under street arcade, however it is nothing compared to the one near the main station that connects 3 subway stations.
This is a very colorful, very nice area. The eating places are a bit more international, more than just bibimbap, gimbap, bbq.
To celebrate a street with non Korean food, I had Japanese Ramen, and it was actually very good. I got the spicy version, sat at a bar just like in Japan, stared through the window to the kitchen to see if I could tell if the chefs were Japanese or not. I couldnt tell. But they made good Ramen.
My journey home was colorful, as ever. I even saw an Indian guy! Standing on a corner taking photos like me. Daejeon does not seem to be popular with white people / subcontinentals. At least while I have been paying attention. I do think there are a few Chinese people, I saw a lost looking large tour group earlier carrying lots and lots of boxes of shopping. This post sounds racist, but I dont view the world through blinkers, a black person is black, an Indian person is Indian or maybe Pakistani, a white guy is balding and middle aged. In a crowd full of Koreans that is what makes different stand out. I stand out for not only being white balding and middle aged but also for being angry looking, and dressed like a homeless person. Perhaps hundreds of Koreans went home tonight and said 'I saw an old white balding angry homeless person!', thats my dream.
And as a special treat, here is a can of chupa chups. It is actually a drink, not a can full of lollipops.