shopping....

Shopping in Korea is a bit of an adventure on any given day.  The country is just a bit smaller than the island of Newfoundland or just a bit larger than the state of Maine.

 Now, picture this area with a population of 49,000,000 (that's right, forty-nine million!).

 NOW, reduce the habitable area to approximately one third - that is roughly one half of the land area of Nova Scotia or the entire land mass of Hawaii.  This new area holds ALL the people, agriculture and industry! (Statistically, Korea is at 98% of it's habitable capacity; the US is at 5% and the UK is at 20%)  Have you got a good picture of how crowded Korea is yet?

Well, you can imagine that shopping can be a bit of an adventure on any given day.  To give you a better picture - shopping in Korea on an average day makes me think of the start of the December Christmas shopping season.  Now imagine this same time period at a Price Club / Costco.

Today was a trip to the Costco in the next city over.  This was complicated by the fact that next week is Lunar New Year.  A HUGELY important holiday here.  So, shopping at Costco was CRAZY.  Think Black Friday sales + last minute Christmas shoppers + parents at the christmas release of the latest 'must have' toy craze and now you have a picture of what it was like!

Last night, after I took my friend to the dentist, we tried to stop at THE shop to pick up a few things.  seemed reasonable as the shop closed at 9.  BUT, as of 830 the shop stops people from entering!

Living in another country (even for the second time) is never dull...