Our Seoul and Tokyo Adventure: Day Eleven

Bob was feeling quite a bit better today, but still didn't have enough energy to leave the house, so we left him there while we went to the Shinsegae Department Store to pick up some groceries. Unfortunately, what sounded like a relatively straightforward errand turned out to be a rather frustrating experience, filled with labyrinthine parking lots, elevators that never arrived, and a long walk to get into the department store--only to discover that we still had thirty minutes to wait until the store actually opened! This would have been fine, except that the parking garage was really freezing and after finally locating the store entrance, we were reluctant to walk away from our hard-won find. After finding a store employee, who explained the situation (apparently every single Shinsegae Department Store in greater Seoul keeps the same hours, except for the Suji store, which opens an hour later on Sundays), we were escorted through the still-closed store (which was filled with people getting ready for the busy day) and shown a warm place where we could wait.

We weren't the only people who were here early, and over the half hour, about twenty other people joined us. I was shocked to see that an employee cleaned every step of the escalator during our wait, using a brush and cloth to wipe down all the grooves in the steps. Does this happen everywhere and I've just never witnessed it, or does this fit as firmly into the way-beyond-the-call-of-duty category as I think it does?

The store finally opened and since we were amongst the first handful of people to enter, we experienced something that I first experienced on a visit to Seoul a long time ago, which still makes me quite uncomfortable: when a department store opens, all the employees (of which there are easily ten times more than in a Canadian or UK store) line up along the central aisle and bow to the first group of customers to enter the store. So, as we walked down the very long aisle toward the grocery section, all the employees bowed to us in a surreal domino effect. Needless to say, I didn't have the nerve to get a photo! We had come to Shinsegae today instead of going to the E-Mart because we had some special ingredients to buy for New Year's Day, including fish (gum tae),

vegetables (this is one of my favourites, gosari, or young fern shoots),

and that rarity of my parents' diet, beef. Beef isn't cheap in Korea, with the most expensive varieties costing up to 11,500 Won per 100 grams--that's CAD$63 or GBP£31 per pound! We didn't buy the most expensive cuts, but still, the price was definitely of the special-occasion variety.

This booth made fresh tofu on-site, and after sampling some of the delicious black-sesame tofu, we bought a (still warm from the preparation) package of it.

When we arrived home, we were happy to see that Bob was having a more vertical day than yesterday, and I took this photo in my dad's study because I thought it looked funny that Bob had taken over my dad's computer and had seemingly relegated my dad to the floor!

(Actually, my dad was connecting something to the computer's USB port, and the computer was on the floor, so Bob isn't quite as pushy as he looks.) Depending on where you looked, after lunch (Chinese steamed buns and a lox salad for three of us, and Campbell's chicken noodle soup and dry toast for you-know-who) the afternoon was spent over another game of scrabble

or a bit of solitary i-podding.

Even though it was a really cold day, my dad and I decided to go for a rambly walk over to the E-Mart to pick up some things. We walked through some of the main streets of town, including what my parents call "Suji Myeongdong" because it's the busiest part of Suji. Every building in this area is crammed full of businesses, many of them tiny, and very few of them at street level--hence the flurry of advertising that makes for a rather overwhelming variety of signs!

We were freezing by the time we arrived at the E-Mart, and I practically ran across the street to get into the warm store,

which was super-busy this close to the new year.

Back home, the outdoor wanderers warmed up,

while the shut-in remained with earplugs firmly attached.

For dinner, we had a rather light meal of fried rice and fish, which Bob also ate.

After dinner, and after much reluctance on his part ("Oh, I don't know, it sounds pretty complicated"), I showed my dad how we could play scrabble by email even after I was back in London. To get him comfortable with such a wild and crazy premise, we started an email game tonight, while we were in the same house. The big question is: will my dad take to this new, bizarre way of playing an old favourite?