I had heard legends of the electronics market in Seoul and decided to go find it. I was quite impressed when I found it. The huge eight story IPark Mall(아이파크몰) dedicated to electronics of all sorts with each floor having different types of goods with hundreds of shops and booths displaying and selling wares.
When you arrive by train you are greeted by the lovely and airy Yongsan station (용산역). The main station concourse is huge with some giant art installations.
Once you cross the grand station and go into the electronics market where you are greeted by the photography floor. I was amazed by the selection and number of sellers here. There are hundreds of booths all selling everything from lenses, to camera bodies, to tripods to Selfie Sticks (You see selfie sticks everywhere in Korea, you can also buy a Bluetooth remote to go with it). Walking around the photography floor I was astounded by the number and different sizes of camera lenses available.
The market also had a floor dedicated to computers with hundreds of laptops, pc’s and peripherals, Cell phones. The cell phone floor was very crowded with folk shopping for all sorts of cell phones.
Wedding Ceremony Hall
Wedding Banquet Hall
I was blown away by Gundam Base, a shop for all your Gundam needs. The Gundam franchise started as Japanese animation has been around since 1979. Since then it has grown huge and has spawned more than 36 television series, many anime series, and hundreds of plastic figurines.
A Gundam is a giant mech robotic suit from the popular Japanese animation franchise with the same name. This shop is dedicated to selling miniature kits of the Gundams most of which come unassembled and have hundreds to thousands of pieces required for assembly. Fans spend hours assembling kits of their favorite gundams.
Some of the kits with thousands of pieces are quite large and intrequate. You can see me here being quite impressed with these gundams.
I have never seen so many kits in one place. Usually a shop might have a small display case with a few kits.
They had an interesting display with a large Gundam helping a child build snowmen.
A large gundam greets shoppers as they arrive. I resisted the need to take a selfie with this guy.
So many Gundams!
Off to the side they had a few display cases with One Piece figurines. One piece is another popular Japanese anime series about a pirate with super powers assembling a crew and trying to become the pirate king.
Near the Gundam Base was a toy shop where I saw this beauty.
Turtle Ship
A turtle ship toy. The turtle ship was basically a tank boat designed by General Yi Sun-sin (이순신 장군) in 1592 and used very effectively to battle against the Japanese when they attempted to conquer Korea.
Article by Read from Canada
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