Namgwangju Market

My New Year's Resolution is to travel more, experience, and see new things. My first new place of the new year was my trip to Namgwangju Market. It's only a few blocks away, probably less than 1km, but hey, start small, right? I've passed by it a few times since I've been here, but I never investigated further. Today I did!

Namgwangju Market is the smaller of two open-air markets in Gwangju City, the other being Yangdong Market. Namgwangju Market is just on my side of Gwangjucheon Stream, which is the bit of water that runs through Gwangju. The stream is formed from the Geungnakgang and Yeongsangang Rivers. Both Gwangju markets are along this stream. You would think it's because the water makes for excellent transportation of all the seafood to the markets. However, the stream is barricaded with boulders and stones every 1000 yards, presumably for aesthetic effect but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also a way for the city to generate energy because the water flows to the rivers, not from it. Either way, boats couldn't possibly travel along the water. Still, I wanted to check out the market for a few different reasons.

Open-air markets are new to me! There are a few famous ones in the USA, Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, WA, comes to mind, but I've never been to any of them. My first was the Noryangin Market in Seoul, but it was a quick visit on one of the stops for the Seoulmazing Race. I visited Yangdong Market back in August with Elizabeth and Joseph, and today was my third trip to this type of market. They are very cool to me, with all sorts of foods available for purchase. The coolest part, though, is seeing the live fish and octopi swimming around in tanks and buckets filled with sea water, just waiting to be someone's dinner. The vendor at this stall picked up one of these octopi for me to get a good live shot, but my camera was suffering from the cold and the lens became foggy when I took it out of my pocket. She had actual paying customers and I didn't want to ask her again, so I just snapped this of the octopi (man I never get to use that word!) in the bucket when my camera decided to respond.

Fish selection from several different stalls

Live Octopi

I also wanted to check out the produce selection. Each vendor had a wide selection of fruits and vegetables, from strawberries that looked like rubies to lettuce that looked like emeralds and onions that looked like, well, maybe they just looked like onions. (Let's face it - if they looked like diamonds, it would decrease the value of the diamond, and we don't want that.)

Produce Wing

The language barrier makes everyday things somewhat difficult in Korea, especially when it comes to asking questions beyond 'how much' and stating how much of something I would like. In the market, nothing is priced and almost everything is laid out in bulk quantities. I wanted some lettuce, so I stopped at a stall with a friendly old woman vendor. I pointed to the lettuce and she said what sounded like 'sam', the word for 3 in hangul. I said 'dugae' and she said ok. My first market negotiation! She got out a bag and stuffed it with three enormous heads of red tip lettuce. And I paid 2,000 won for it all. All of that lettuce would have cost me roughly $6-8 in a grocery store at home! I took it home and made the most delicious salad for dinner using one entire head of my fresh new lettuce, plus a tomato, onion and apple that I also got at the market. One of the best salads I've ever had.

It was a nice little field trip and I was able to check out another part of my city. If I do something different every weekend until I leave for a short break in April, I will check out 10 more new things! How exciting is that?