My Korean Life #18: Costco!

Before I moved to Korea I found out any Costco membership is valid worldwide, regardless of where you made the membership card. This was great news since I have been a Costco member for quite a while and was happy to find out I could continue to reap its benefits in Korea. For those that do not know, Costco is a wholesale membership club similar to Sam's Club and BJ's Club Warehouse. Most of what Costco sells is bulk goods in order to give discounts to members. In the USA membership costs around USD 50 per year...I will most likely have to renew here in Korea so I'll let you know the rates at that time.

Costco stores take up a lot of land so you may be thinking that Seoul would not be the optimal place to build such a store. However, instead of spreading the store out horizontally like in the USA, here in Seoul the store location I went to was multiple floors (food, other goods, parking). The street level floor was home to the electronics, clothing, and most non-food items. The first basement level was the cafeteria and all food items (bakery, meat, seafood, etc). Beneath the first basement were more basement levels for parking.

I hear that Costco often enforces that a member can only bring up to 3 guests with them but it didn't seem that this was heavily enforced the day I went. I went on a Monday and it was still very busy and I hear on weekend days you can barely move your cart through the aisles. Like USA Costcos, there are quite a few free sample stations located around the store. But unlike the USA, people were queuing just to get a sample...like 8-10 people deep queue.

Speaking of food, my friends and I ate at the cafeteria. They had the hot dog combo and pizza and some other items (ice cream, what looked like calzones or something) but I'm sure depending on where your Costco is the item selection varies. I don't think they would have Bulgogi pizza in the USA but here at the Korean one they do :D The tables were so close to each other you had to step on the bench seats to slide into place...this probably violated fire code but...welcome to Korea! The cafeteria, like the store itself was packed with what looked like a shopping cart graveyard right in front of the eating area. We luckily were able to retrieve our cart after eating.

As far as the store itself goes, the item choices were actually fairly similar to the USA. There were plenty of Kirkland branded items and decent deals on meat and seafood (slightly more varied than USA stores due to Korean tastes). They even had bulk boxes of Soju and Korean brands of beer. A couple of items that I was surprised to see were Reece's peanut butter cups, Salsa, and bagels! I didn't actually walk around the street level floor much but I plan to do that soon.

As for checking out. The only forms of payment offered at Korean Costco are the Samsung Costco credit card or cold hard CASH. No debit cards like in the USA. I even asked just to be sure and was met with a prompt "안 돼요" (Not possible). Basically saw a bunch of people paying in large amounts of cash but a few had the branded credit card.

I only bought one item that day and it was quite heavy but I did manage to get it back to my apartment from the subway. I will be going again soon so I'll update this post if I find out anything else!

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My Korean Summer 2013: Day 35 - Exploring Hongdae, Insadong, and Samcheongdong

It rains, a lot, during the month of July in Korea. It is monsoon season and there is no doubt about it. The weather is hot, humid, and downright nasty some days. There are those "it's raining sideways" days where the wind is a-blowin' and it's raining cats and dogs.

It was the rain that originally washed (haha) my Saturday plans away. Originally a friend and I were going to go to the open air market in Hongdae but apparently if it rains, no one shows up...not even to wait out the rain. After going home, I got a message that my friend was still in the area so I trekked back into Hongdae to meet her. From there, the afternoon/early evening was filled with an unplanned but fun adventure!

[Hongdae - take two]

My friend wanted to visit the cafe where Coffee Prince was filmed so we headed there first. It currently functions as a working cafe but for some reason today they were not open to the public. They said we could take pictures outside but not of the inside...weird. 

Pretty good Engrish right?

The next stop for us was a very famous bingsu place. This place was so well known there was a line out the door! We probably waited for...20-30 minutes? I'm not exactly sure but the longer we waited in the heat, the more I wanted any bingsu...famous or not. The menu was simple from what I understood, you could get the classic milk bingsu or the one with green tea. We opted for the classic...it was quite tasty and refreshing.

[Insadong]

After bingsu, we headed to Insadong because I still hadn't bought any souvenirs for my co-workers. I decided to get the mother-of-pearl inlay business card holders. These are sold many places but I wanted to scout out a good place to try and haggle with the vendor. I'm sure most of these vendors buy from the same source and it's just a matter of finding a vendor that is willing to haggle a bit (regardless of if there is a price sticker on the merchandise). Now you can't haggle everywhere in Korea, but Insadong is ok with it. It helps if you are 1) paying in cash and 2) buying in bulk...I was doing both that day. Oh...and also, if you speak some Korean. In actuality, you don't need all that much vocabulary. 

After finding a place that had a variety of the business card holders, my friend said we wanted to buy 15 of them and asked if we could get some kind of break. The vendor gave us a number, then we countered and she agreed...easy enough! The hardest part was picking out 15 different ones. Luckily, the vendor had some extra stock that wasn't on display. 

Souvenirs in hand, we made our way out of Insadong to Samcheongdong.

[Samcheongdong]

Samcheongdong is known for its cafes and shops. Dynasty era palaces flank its left and right with Insadong to its south. It's a very nice area and was bustling with activity when we arrived. It was also terribly hot and humid so we found a small tea cafe to take a break. 

It was getting late and hunger started to settle in. We decided to go for cuisine other than Korean and found an Italian restaurant just down from the tea cafe. After browsing the menu, we agreed to stay and have dinner. And for some odd reason, Koreans love to give pickled items as side dishes with Italian food (this includes pizza places).

Overall, a good day spent...all improvised at that! I only had one more day left in the motherland...how quickly these 5 weeks flew by...

~

Singapore: Orchard Road

Hi! I know it's been way too long since I have posted any content but below you will find pictures from Orchard Road in Singapore. Orchard Road hosts many shopping malls and high end retail stores as well as major hotels and dining.