One of the oldest, and more interesting markets in Seoul is Namdaemun, which sits just a short distance away from one of the old city gates. Its a great place to dive into Seoul, and it's where we started out exploration of the city.


The Market is far more than just shoes and clothes...

All of this can be cooked, on the spot, for a quick treat, if you look in the back,you'll see some folks who have ducked in under the tarping, where several tables are set up.


The market is named for the gate, which is ancient, but mostly rebuilt after it suffered serious damage in the Korean war.

The gate once was set into the walls which ringed the medieval city. It now is surrounded by busy streets, and flanked by modern office buildings. Even on a Sunday morning, there's a fair bit of traffic. When one walks around to get a closer look, one also finds that, keen to provide a little bit of flair, the city has hired people to re-create the watch that was kept on the gate during historical times.


Well, nothing appeals to a small person like historically garbed people...


As we were about to leave the gate area, we heard druming. We tracked it down fairly quickly...


Not only does the city mount the guard, they mount a proper change ceremony. (None of which was listed in our guidebooks, nor any of the websites we had poked at before our trip. We simple stumbled onto all of this, by blind luck)




Even guards...

Wait for the lights...

And carefully cross in the zeba stripes. (They don't seem to pay attention to the one way walk arrows, tho )

I did mention drums, didn't I?  When the group of guards reached the gate, the split, and circled the gate.





After the gate, we walked up to the nearby DeokSuGung Palece. afterwards, we walked back
to the market area for lunch:


This was one of over a dozen hole in the wall restaurants along a single alley in the depths of the market. They all looked fascinating, but we could only eat one lunch. Life is so unfair, sometimes.