Despite what the title implies, today wasn’t entirely shopping. We actually started the day by visiting the Suwon Hwaseong Fortress to fire some bows and visit a historic fortress from Dynastic Korea, after which we visited the Samsung Innovation Museum (SIM).
At SIM, we were given a guided tour by one of the guides there, Chloe, who guided us through the history of not only Samsung, but the discovery of electricity and evolution of electronics. The whole experience was endlessly fascinating—especially with my love of technology, being raised as a gamer by my dad. I love jerry-rigging old tech and finding out how it works, so having that guided tour experience showing us how all of these retro technologies work and seeing the physical devices and learning what discoveries or innovations allowed for their creations was just endlessly fascinating. No matter how interesting modern technology is, retro technology will always be the most engaging to learn about because the amount of restrictions we had to work around due to a lack of knowledge sparked an immense creativity. In a budding market like that, there are so many different companies trying different approaches to create a similar end product, so the differences between their products paints an impressively clear picture of how technology developed through time. My biggest complaint with SIM was really that we didn’t get enough time to walk around and explore the different exhibits and displays. Everything was rather fast-paced and while the information Chloe gave was fascinating and very in-depth, I would’ve loved to look around on my own, as well, and truly take the time to follow every evolution present in the museum.
Finally, we went shopping. Fortunately for me, there were a lot of wonderful shops. Unfortunately for my wallet, there were a lot of wonderful shops. Most of us spent the evening in the Namdaemun Market, going between street stalls and department stores shopping for souvenirs. Personally, I was a fan of the Mimiline department store we visited. The inside had four floors: the first was entirely almonds (not a joke), the second was all women’s apparel, the third was menswear, and the last was accessories and checkout. While I didn’t buy any clothes (there), I spent a lot of time walking around the store with the others, looking at accessories and eventually buying a Wappen keychain where you decorate a fabric keyring with iron-on patches as a souvenir/gift. Finally, we found a department store, hotel, and arcade all-in-one and I dropped my entire savings account there! (I’m so broke!) Ben and I played Taiko no Tatsujin which was a rhythm game with drum controllers. I’ve always wanted to play it, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Sadly, Ben destroyed me on the first two songs, but it was all worth it because I doubled his score on the hardest one! Finally, I bought some nice pencils (don’t ask how much they were. I’m still repressing that memory) and we moved into the building’s clothing shop where I found a nice pair of jeans that really fit in with the baggy styling seen in modern Korean streetwear.
All in all, the morning activities like the Samsung Innovation Museum were some of my favorites of the trip so far, and our early start for shopping allowed me to make some really nice memories with the others on the trip. From shopping with Madeline in Mimiline to trying on hats with Manav and Ben, I feel like this part of the trip was especially important to building connections between us all.