Korea: 광장시장 Gwangjang market at night (again)

 Gwangjang market, along with being one of my absolute favorite destinations for street food and rubbing elbows with both the local population and tourists alike (whom I would frequently encourage to eat things they might not otherwise brave ordering, like the lovely British duo I encouraged to dive into yukhoe once upon a time), Gwangjang is also exceptionally photogenic, and not just in some of its many corners, but most of them. I've enjoyed trying to capture the complex and often vastly different vibes of some of its many labyrinthine corridors because it is not easy to capture the frenetic, ever-changing energy of the place, let alone the changes of the seasonal shifts and tourist tides. Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite locations in all of Seoul. The energy and vibe of the place is hard to recreate, and I dread the day somewhere in the future when the current-day market building will be replaced with something bigger, brighter, and newer, under the pretense it must ostensibly be somehow better. 

While the nearly endless parade of activity is certainly fascinating to witness, there's something instrinsically surreal and haunting about these typically packed vicinities becoming vacant, quiet, or shuttered. As the night goes on, the crowds do have a propensity towards thinning out and dispersing into other channels, down a seemingly endless artery of alleyways and streets that ferry the strangers away to their multiplicity of unknown destinations. Who knows where they all end up? When these veins of commerce drain and grow hollowed, the remaining lights bouncing off of dark panes of glass, the echoes chasing your footsteps, it's almost like slipping into another dimension altogether.  Seoul is not a city where the trains run at all hours of the day, and as such, there's definitely a late-night rush as the last minute commuters dash off into the darkness, leaving the streets eerily quiet in those tentative moments prior to the limitation of movement and practically desolate after the final train departs the station at that early witching hour. 

Inevitably, this was one of my favorite times to wander. Not easy when living in the suburbs, but I relished in these evening strolls in near-solitude. 

💖

XOXO,

NAU