Vita in Vitro: Shopping

"Myeongdong? That's a place for tourists, not for Koreans. The shop assistants don't even look at us," said my Korean friend when I told her about one of my first trips after arriving to Seoul. She's right. Every single store there has staff speaking Chinese, Japanese and a tiny bit of English and they're trained to pull people in stores in any possible way. Sometimes literally. I'm still in a slight shock from being grabbed by a shop girl and literally dragged inside the store - I was so annoyed I kept the sample she forced onto me and didn't buy anything. This happened on a very non-busy day though, when most stores were totally empty. That is a very rare sight, since most days, the streets are so crowded it's hard to walk and shops are so full it's difficult to get back to the door from the cashier. The highest concentration of people is near the station and it decreases as one walks towards Euljiro and Jongno.

Now, what can you find in Myeongdong?