Visiting South Korea: Insadong

One of the places I wanted to go to first when arriving in Seoul was Insadong. I had heard that this was one of the best places to find souvenirs and K-pop items because you could bargain the price down. Insadong is an extremely long street that is just for shopping for souvenir related items. To get there you would need to head toward and get off at Anguk station exit 6 I believe. After exiting the station walk straight and on your left you will see an information booth and a street full of shoppers. That is Insadong.
       My advice for anyone whom goes there is to bring a lot of money and a list of all the people you need to buy for on your trip. This is the perfect place to buy gifts for the family back at home. And Always ALWAYS try and bargain the price down. If you are obviously a foreigner you can usually get a lower price. Other tools are to tell them you saw a place selling it for less or that you will pay cash. These will usually knock down the price of anything you buy, even if you are in other markets not in Insadong. Another trick that I forgot to mention that I used a lot is to package deal. Tell them that if you buy this and this you will pay a price lower than what is priced. Trust me! These people are stocked up on goods and they desperately want to sell, so if you are buying more than one item they are certain to knock the price down. Always offer lower too until they won't go any lower, and if you still think that is an unreasonable price, go somewhere else. The bad thing about this market is that they all seem to be selling the same thing. This is good for bargaining, but after awhile looking in some of the shops just gets boring.
       In Insadong there is also a mini-mall, which sells cute things and clothes. Things you won't find on the street of Insadong. In this mini-mall there is a cheap place to take Japanese style photo booth pictures. The great thing about this place is that they will let you borrow a free Hanbok, Korean traditional dress, to wear during your photo so you can look cute and Korean for your picture. It was really cheap and really fun so I would recommend you try it!
       Food in Insadong can get expensive. There are only restaurants on the sides because there really isn't any room for street vendors until you get out towards the intersection. If you are in the middle of Insadong street and you get hungry just face the fact that it might be a little pricey. When I went with my friends we found this great waffle place that was really expensive so we just split the waffles and shared. They were absolutely delicious!!

I would say one of my favorite things about Insadong was looking at all the traditional crafts and picking out what I wanted to buy. It was hard to budget in my head, that's why I would suggest making a list, but overall I didn't spend too much and I got an idea of what I wanted to buy when I am here. I think towards the end of my trip I might go back to buy a few more things before I go home. My advice though is to just wait till the end of your trip before you go. There is plenty of places to shop at in Seoul and you don't want to blow your money all in one place. If you need to, don't buy that day and then think about it overnight if you really want that item. This was a great help to me deciding what I wanted and what I didn't want. It is always easy to go back to a certain place, so as long as you remember where the item is, you can still get it.