I'VE HIT THE MOTHERLOAD!!!!!

While driving to Asan for our trip to Admiral Yi's park (see previous post), my eyes were transcendentally drawn to a junk store at one of our turns.  Of course, I had to come back. So with the help of my beautiful and brave friend, Leah, we risked our lungs, tetanus shots, and scaredy cat-ness of big horking spiders lying in wait for us, eager to pounce on an unsuspecting arm or leg, and dug through Ajusshi's treasures.  Man, oh man, what glorious, heavenly things awaited us!  Doors and windows and old silk screens and beautiful paintings and dressers and old cameras, I could go on and on.  We climbed through some pretty treacherous broken glass and rusty metal pipes to get to the good stuff.  All in all, Leah came home with a beautiful door, which Ajusshi lovingly tied to the top of my Jeep with an extension chord he found amongst his rubble.  And I found and old door, and old screen and two old windows.  I have posted some pictures of other treasures to be found.  

Ajusshi's prices were a little steep....something that will change as we build a relationship with him and he does not think we are stupid Americans.  I am sure the more we go, the more his prices will go down.  It seems most business people in town are skeptical of Americans; maybe because they do not speak English and we do not speak Hangul.  But that will never stop me from finding treasures and goods that are unique to Korea.  We googled how to say "See you soon" which is "god dangsin-eulbogo", we wanted him to know we would be back.  He seemed skeptical of our motives at first, but I think with the loot we packed in my Jeep, and the fact that we were not afraid to dig in his outside junk pile, made him view us differently.  A definite trip back for sure, only this time with a Bongo truck and a KATUSA, to ease the translation process!!!  (Note to self...must also learn to translate "junk" in a positive fashion in Hangul).