Clothing Dump Trip

Over the past few weeks, I had heard some rumors of the thrift stores of Jinju. (I, of course, asked about them first, haha.) The responses were varied, but I got some good information: thrift stores are a bit different in Korea. About 99% are actual businesses run by just a couple of ladies selling clothes they'd picked from the garbage for way too much money. (There's one of these in my neighborhood, but the clothes are actually kind of nice in there.) No proceeds ever go to charity, so no one really donates clothes.... There are a FEW, however, that are basically garbage dumps for clothes. Koreans are huge on recycling (they even have a separate collection for food... which is disgusting to collect in my house but it gets turned into city compost, so that's cool) and so they collect clothes in these warehouses and "last chance" sell them before they get turned into rags, etc. The Koreans I've met so far would probably never, ever shop in a clothes dump, so I can only assumed that these kinds of stores are set up and run for the REALLY poor people (which there are a lot of hanging round).

Saturday morning, I decided to seek out the clothing dump: my sources told me to look for a giant, abandoned warehouse behind the grocery store completely filled with piles of clothes. And the second floor was supposedly carpeted with shoes. I was captivated. It was about a half-hour's walk in the blinding afternoon sun, but I found it quite easily actually.

It was as described: a giant abandoned warehouse, two blocks behind the grocery store, with more windows broken than not. I entered through a sketchy looking back door and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to what was before me: literally, mountains upon mountains of piled up clothing. I was pretty much dumbfounded, and I was the ONLY person in this cavernous, very dimly lit, damp warehouse. I felt like I was doing something very wrong.... (The woman working there I later saw passed out on top of a pile of clothes, haha... it was pretty creepy in there) So, I slowly began picking things off of piles. Though there was the occasional very dirty pile, most of the clothes were in really good shape and there were even a bunch of fur coats. Then, I ventured onto the second floor via a very creepy wide cement staircase blanketed with mismatched shoes. And, my jaw dropped. The celing on the second floor was completely caved in in the middle, leaving a very large pile of debris in the center of the room so tall you couldn't see the other side. There were mismatched shoes everywhere, just a small pathway to make your way around and try to find a match. When I finally came back downstairs, one of my friends, Justin, was there, having heard me talk about this place earlier in the week. Together we kind of just laughed at how crazy everything was inside.

I'm standing on top of a pile of clothing here, looking at the corner of the warehouse. All around and behind me are mountains like these.

A (small) organized part of Floor Shoe Chaos and pile of ceiling in the center of the room

Having immediately returned home to shower and wash the clothes I bought, I loved every second of it. Most things inside cost less than a dollar... and everyone haggles here so it costs even less. I can't wait to go back and find a (literally, DIRT cheap) Halloween costume.

Otherwise, school is going ok, and I'm finally about to be paid! For the past three weeks, I've been living off of the $1,000 USD I brought with me, and after really only purchasing the bare necessities and food, I have a couple hundred left. I think it will be pretty easy to save money here, which is awesome.

I say hello to this teeny guy every day while I walk home. He barely sat still long enough for me to take a pic!

Sunday, a few of my new friends and I took a trip to a lovely, still lake on the outskirts of the city which functions as the fresh water resevoir for Jinju. It's also a beautiful park with some lovely hiking trails and some burial shrines scattered. After sitting by the lake for a while we had a delicious barbeque dinner.

The intricate ceiling of one pagoda in the lake park. 

Above: an advertisement from a photo store. Koreans being hilarious.

This upcoming weekend, CR organized a group trip to Daegu, a very big city about an 90 minutes by bus, to see a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Excitement!