Seoul Searching for Christmas Gifts

We went to Seoul this weekend for a bit of shopping. Insadong is a section of Seoul that has many traditional aspects of Korean culture on display on a daily basis. It's a living museum of shops, restaurants, artists, and street performers. Even the Starbucks in Insadong is not so recognizable because the sign is in Korean letters, something we haven't seen at any other Starbucks. This section of town is trying to stay as Korean as possible, but of course, there is a lot of English spoken to cater to tourists. There are many ESL students wandering the streets, because they know Insadong is swarming with English speakers; they are told to come here to practice English and often have assignments to complete. The most popular assignment: Talk to an English person and get his impressions of Korea (and make sure he says all nice things). This is me being interrogated by a group of ESL students.
Insadong is not your typical souvenir haven, although there are plenty of souvenirs to be had. The shop owners are not as pushy or annoying as say Mexican peddlers, but they do tend to lurk over your shoulder in a way that makes you think, and almost say, "Leave me alone, I'm just looking, if you stop breathing down my neck, I might even buy something."
There is also many forms of traditional Korean foods here, some we'd rather not see or smell. I've mentioned bondegi before, which is the silkworm larvae cooked in boiling water. Here is a nice pot of it boiling on the side of the road. Be thankful that smells do not transmit over the internet, as this stuff has the most repulsive stench we have ever experienced, like a tomb of rotten corpses. One whiff and we were gagging, but we see people on the street happily munching away on paper cups full of bondegi. The french fry looking things in front of the pot are one of Jenn's favourite snacks. They are sweet potato fries, but they are served cold and crunchy. We didn't buy any from this vendor, for fear that some of the bondegi juice spilled over from the pot.
After shopping for several hours, I tend to get quite grumpy and Jenn found it easier to talk to this statue than to get a straight answer from me. This worked to her benefit as if gave her the freedom to buy more souvenirs than I would normally agree to.
This artist is painting our name on silk parchment. A little bigger than the grains of rice we are used to seeing our names printed on. It is the most beautiful souvenir we bought so far, even though my grumpiness was setting in by this point and we would not have ended up getting it if Jenn hadn't been persistent.