Gwangju Metropolitan City - 광주시

The city of Gwangju, located within the Jeollanamdo province, but not technically part of the province itself, is the sixth largest city in South Korea. I have a feeling that this city will be the closest 'big city' near to wherever my new home may be and therefore I suspect I will be frequenting here often. I feel like from what I have seen so far Gwangju looks mostly the same to any other Korean city I have visited, but I am sure like other places it has its own unique treasures yet to be discovered. It is a big city after all. Since I have only wandered around one main area of the city, this post is likely to be lots of food and shopping spam.

My first note about Korean cities, and this goes for all of them, is that there are claw machines literally EVERYWHERE. If you don't watch yourself it will be the end of your paycheck right there. They are dangerous I am telling you. Dangerously addictive. They are filled with irresistibly cute stuffed characters and are very misleading. I have seen so many Korean people stand there and go through 5, 10, 15, and even 20 dollars in no time at all trying to win a stuffed animal from these machines. After about three tries I usually give up, since I am cheap. However, when there are rooms filled with rows of claw machines literally around every street corner they become difficult to avoid. Even if you are not in a room filled with them, they often are lining the streets outside shops as well. Then you have the arcades on top of all of that, which are traps. They have all the claw machines, flashy and shiny lights, singing rooms, photo booths and games to play. They suck you in so easily. At the arcades, they also reset the games often, so if you are working at a machine and after three tries you are really close to getting it don't be surprised if an employee suddenly shows up and moves the animal back to its original position either....

Plus, if you are a sore loser, when you see Koreans walking down the street with those prizes in there hand (which happens more often than you'd imagine) you begin to seethe with jealously and it may begin to hurt your pride. It is a dangerous cycle, because with your pride hurt combined with the knowledge that winning must in fact be possible you will find yourself returning to these places more that you probably should be. That is until that miraculous day that you somehow manage to get one...if that day comes. But I do not think that getting one would break the cycle, at that point you are already addicted and if you won one you may think, 'I've got this now, next time should be easier..."

Beware the claw machines! ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

On a somewhat different note, if you are a foreigner and you find yourself in one of these arcades prepare to be stared at, it will happen. And, if you are like me, prepare for the possible stalker. The last arcade my friend and I visited, after about 5 minutes we realized we had a shadow. At first I thought he was watching other people play like we were, but when he was always standing next to the machine we were using we started to grow uncomfortable. Every several minutes he would walk away, but he would be back by the time we moved to a new machine. It was like he didn't realize how obvious he was while following us. We took our opportunity, and the next time that he went to walk away for a brief moment we bolted. We were out the doors, around the corner, up the escalator, out the door, and onto the street before he had the chance to even realize we were missing. I didn't exactly feel threatened by the guy, but he had a definite creep factor to him. He probably was just curious since we were foreign, but there are better ways to interact if you are curious...even if that just means watching us from a distance.

On another note, street food!!! Yeah! I finally found myself some of that egg bread! I had seen it in Seoul but never had the chance to try it. It is literally what it sounds like, a cooked egg inside of a tiny bread loaf that is sweet and tastes similar to a pancake. It was moist and pretty tasty. Good breakfast food I would say and pretty reasonable in price, only 1,500 Won. My friend and I also found this awesome looking potato snack that was delicious too. Fried and rolled in either salt, cheese, or spicy cheese. It was yummy.

My yummy dinner with all those side dishes!

Potato snack!

Lastly, I would like to provide some more food photos, some of which I have eaten and others which I have not tasted yet, only saw on the street.

Cold noodles! Tasted like cucumber :)

Some unidentifiable insect
 I have yet the courage to try.

Various Foods on Sticks!

Korean Burger King!
Steak and Shrimp Burger :)

This was in the Korean Burger King, and obviously is a sign warning not to trip and fall down the stairs...but it is one of the funniest depictions I have yet to see in my life warning against this. I should print this sign and somehow learn how to write in Korean beneath it, "Warning, I have a tendency to trip and fall over. Caution."  ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Shopping!!! Yeah facial products! So I went to the Face Shop and decided to give another random face wash a try. I am becoming a Korean face wash addict. I have bought so many to try that I have enough for like 6 months already. The best part, and this is how stores hook you, is the free samples! For example this photo is everything that I came home with from the store. However the only things that I actually purchased were the bottles of Jeju Volcanic Lava face wash and the pore mask. The face masks, lotion, and body wash packets all were free samples and I cannot wait to give them a try.


For more on Gwangju click here