Downtown Daegu

I had a lot of fun going downtown this weekend. It feels much more like a city. On the weekends it’s wall-to-wall people, bright lights at night, and lots of sounds. Many stores play loud music and have their doors open so you can hear it in the street. As you walk only a few paces you hear one song fading out and being drown by the next store’s music. Actually, I kind of like that. It’s common in malls and department stores here for there to be women holding a product or flyer and calling out to passers by. So downtown since the music is so loud, people have microphones and call out.
For some reason all the stores are segregated by their type. What I mean is that there’ll be a whole street that’s just clothing, another street that’s just jewelry, another just for food, another for weddings. It’s interesting, you’d think that it would make things too competitive to stay in business. I found this huge bookstore that’s like a Barnes & Noble… and it even has a Starbucks in it. Yes, that’s right, I got some. I was so happy! That was my first real cup of coffee since I was in the U.S. Here there’s a lot of premade stuff, or dry creamer, or weak coffee, etc.
One thing I heard at some time or another and forgot about until just this weekend… was the store “watchers” as I call them. If you go into a store there sometimes is a person who follows your every move about 3 paces behind you. I mean this very literally because I tested it. I went around weird corners and doubled back around others. I don’t think the mentality is to watch you like a hawk, I think it’s to help you if you need anything. It feels very strange and awkward at first, but you can get used to it. The bakeries are so great! Everything they make is so beautiful. I took a picture of a cake I liked. I was a bit surprised because technically the city of Daegu is pretty big, but the downtown area is so small. I walked through the whole thing and I feel like it know it pretty well in a general sense. I have to spend far more time to get to know the individual shops and where the best place is to get whatever still of course. There’s so many small mom and pop places and then right in the middle of everything is a pretty high-end mall. It’s like a large Bloomingdales. I’ll probably go again next weekend. It looks cool at night so I'll post some night pictures later.