Costco Trip

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Kyle and I have been really craving North American food lately so when Matt got here, we decided it was time to go into Seoul and buy our very first Costco cards. Yes, they do have Costco here in Korea and the food we got from Costco has never tasted so good. We started our morning off at around 8am getting the bus into Seoul. It only costs us $9CDN to take the 2 hours bus into the city. It’s a good deal. You can’t get in there for any cheaper no matter which mode of transportation you take. We sat on the bus for a while and could definitely tell when we were
getting closer and closer to the city. The smog was getting thicker and more abundant.

We arrived at the bus station and since Laura, a friend from Prov, was not there yet, we decided to explore a little. We seem to have this thing with always arriving in the “old” areas of stations. Like when we first came to Wonju and we arrived in the “old” bus station, well again, we arrived in the older area of the bus station in Seoul and it wasn’t very nice. Also, the cicadas were so loud that it was almost deafening. To kill time and to get away from the cicadas, we went down some stairs and found a massive underground mall that has two hallways in each direction that run parallel to each other. These hallways seem to never end when you are walking down them as well. To not get lost, we decided to just pick one hallway and walk down it and back again. We found that there were more “intersections” of hallways the further down you went. We got a call from Laura saying that she had arrived and we headed back up to sea level and met up with her. From there, we went to the newer station and got some money out of the ATM’s and headed to the subway stations. We bought subway cards and got on and headed to the electronics district of Seoul. It was pretty insane. For anyone who wants a good deal on a computer, Nikon camera and
accessories, canon camera and accessories, and really any electronic you can think of, this is most definitely the place to go. There are vendors pretty much stuff into these little booths side by side each other and selling the exact same product. So, you can imagine the competition. After about a couple hours of walking around, Matt found the lens he was looking for a basically got in for $200-$300 cheaper than stores at home.

After that, we met up with another friend from Prov, Krista and headed to Costco. Kyle and I filled out the information and both got cards (since married couples only have to pay for one card and they each get one and then can bring in 3 people each, we quickly decided that was the best route to take). We walked around, I GOT REAL DILL PICKLES, and everyone got everything they were looking for. It was frustrating at the same time because Koreans have not mastered the art of shopping with big shopping carts in a bulk store. They will push their carts and then see something they want and wander off in that direction while their cart is either left dead in the middle of the aisle or left drifting alone in the most inconvenient places. Rather frustrating. After we checked out, we were able to have a Costco hotdog meal. Kyle was so incredibly happy about that one. He has been going through major hotdog withdrawal since being here.

After eating, we went back upstairs in Costco and stopped to take everything out of our carts and pack it into the backpacks and suitcases we brought with us from home. It was definitely a challenge walking through Seoul and standing on the subway (since it is so busy and people are packed in there like sardines) with about 2000lbs (not really, but a lot of weight) of groceries on our backs. We were thankful to finally make it back to the bus station and with minutes to spare, we made it back onto the bus and headed home. We have been enjoying Western foods for the past while. Matt notices the quality of the foods from Costco and says it kinda tastes like the cheap versions from home, but to Kyle and I having not had anything Western in three months, it tastes like the most amazing cheese, snacks, hotdogs, etc that we have ever had. I think we will be doing a Costco trip once a month to get some Western foods and meet up with friends who are in the city.

We were supposed to meet up with more friends, but as soon as they texted me to find out our location my phone battery died. I was so mad.