Recently I had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks in Seoul, the bustling capital of South Korea. The greater city has an enormous population; in fact there are more people there than in all of Australia. As a developed country the usual creature comforts are present (public transport, clean water and food, public toilets etc) but at the same time the environment is subtly different. Instead of cough medicine outside the pharmacy there are a hundred bottles of ginseng. Instead of buying wrapping paper from a newsagent you can go to a dedicated shop for stickers, ribbons and decorative paper.

But while the shopping landscape is a little bit different it is very enjoyable and the food is fantastic. Unlike here at home where our archaic food hygiene laws forbid vendors from selling all but the most fried food in the street, Seoul is crammed with street vendors who tend to cluster around major shopping areas. Everything from bizarre hot dogs with chips stuck to the outside to fresh skewers ready for barbecuing on the spot.

Shopping for clothes takes on a whole new meaning as well. While department stores are still common it’s the ‘shopping centres’ where the action is. Multi-storey buildings filled with individual vendors selling a full spectrum of clothing. Everything from plain tees to mens’ jeans adorned with gangsta chains and teddy bears (not an exaggeration). These shopping centres are open until 5am (though not on a Monday, that would be over-the-top) and almost everything is designed to fit properly. At first I thought late night shopping of this magnitude would be exhausting but it turns out that there’s a pleasant sense of the surreal when you’re buying reasonably priced t-shirts at two o’clock in the morning.

I also came across some very interesting store adjacencies. The two most noteworthy; a BBQ restaurant next to an animal hospital (I’m not implying anything untoward, it’s just strange that they would be next to each other) and a local marketplace that specialised in two relatively disparate products: Fabric and wet food. By wet food I mean fresh (and in many cases still living) fish and meat.

The big stand out for me was a store named {maybe}. They had a fascinating motto that I am still yet to fully decipher: ‘maybe fashion will ask and the wanting and to be what once challenge will try’. If anybody can work out what this means I may well send you a small prize.

So whether you’re after a well fitting t-shirt, a ginseng root in a bottle, or pickled cabbage hot enough to make you cry, Seoul is the place to visit! Enjoy the photos.

If anybody has some interesting retail experiences from overseas feel free to share them in your comments!