Korean shopping

Last night I went to the Homeplus, a giant department store chain here. The store is 3 or four floors of stuff. Groceries, housewares, clothing, sports, but not much of a hardware section. Tanya tells me that Koreans aren't really into DIY. I guess Princess Auto would weep alone in her tower over here.

I just wanted to see what it was like shopping here with no help (well, not a lot of help.) I got the directions to the place from the subway stop and set off (twice, I doubled back thinking I had missed it.) I needed a small bag to carry my crap around in (camera, notebooks, etc.), my overcoat pockets are about ready to burst.

I figured out that Korean sizes are metric and are a lot smaller than western sized clothing. I also figured out that I should only use English when speaking to store clerks, after saying a few words of Korean they naturally assumed I was fully fluent, oops. The customer service was excellent and the clerks went out of their way to make sure I got what I was looking for. It's funny how little language you need to ask for t-shirts and underwear.