Sunday, September 23, 2007

Lotte Mart at Chuseok Time

Tuesday is the Korean Thanksgiving holiday called Chuseok. It is the biggest and most important holiday of the year in Korea (so big & important that we get 3 days off from school). The Lotte Mart (sort of the Korean version of Walmart - an all-in-one store with groceries, clothes, school supplies, electronics, home stuff, etc.) across the street from my school has been even busier than usual lately with everyone buying gifts to take with them when they travel to their families' homes.
Fruit, like these apples, is a popular choice.
Boxed sets of spam and tuna are also an option. The smiling ladies dressed in hanbok (Korean traditional dress) will be more than happy to help you pick out that perfect gift and put it in a special bag for you.
A display at the front of the store with a sample of all the various gift sets available. Our school gave all of us teachers a nice set of shampoo, toothpaste, and soap. I would much rather have that than spam or seaweed or cooking oil.
Gift spam nicely packaged with olive oil for the low price of 25,900 won (about $26). Yummy!
Or I guess you could buy some of these octopuses to take to your parents' or grandparents' house as a gift. Now this looks delicious! The lady selling these seemed a little surprised that I wanted a picture of them. This is not something found at my local IGA back home.
These lovely young ladies in their animation/Star Trek costumes are selling gift sets of coffee.
This woman is in charge of the dried fish section.
Children's hanboks on sale. These are for the boys while the ones below are for the girls. I love the bright colors and embroidery. They really are beautiful clothes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What? You'd rather have shampoo and soap than yummy Spam or seaweed?!!! I'll try to remember that when I send your birthday present!