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Textile Procurement Excursion

Seoul Korea

We left Shanghai at 1:00 on Friday afternoon. Our departure was a little nerve racking because Beth got to the airport with her sons passport instead of her own. And...although she and her son both have brown hair we did not think it was going to work. Beth lives on the other side of Shanghai and it was a race to see if her passport would arrive before the plane departed. Thanks to a fast taxi driver and her Ayi the passport arrived and she made the flight. The rest of our trip was very smooth!!!

We arrived in Seoul, bought a shuttle ticket to our hotel, and waited only a few minutes before the bus arrived. The trip to the hotel was just over one hour.

First impressions of Korea....much cleaner, traffic was very organized, and it seemed a little more international with many English signs.

We checked into our hotel and then took a taxi to dinner. Susan's friend took us to a traditional Korean dinner....and I forgot my camera so you will just have to imagine the interesting food we ate. The food was good but very different from our "western" food.

The next morning we were up and ready to shop for fabric!!!

Saturday morning.....lounging in the hotel lobby enjoying our coffee and pastries.

Sights in the hotel....can't resist the flower arrangements that are 10 feet tall

Leaving the hotel....anxious to get our hands all that fabric!
Susan, Jackie, Joanne, Sheryl and Beth

Mr. Happy Quilt (that is our name for our friend at the fabric warehouse because his business is called Happy Quilt) arrived with a car and kindly drove us to the warehouse saving us a long train and taxi ride. It took about 1 hour 15 minutes to reach the warehouse.

In front of the warehouse...ready.....set....Shop!!!!!

The row of fabric in the middle of the warehouse are cut into 2 yard pieces and then put into a plastic bag. There are two rows with three shelves under each row. If you don't find what you are looking for or want larger pieces....just wander around the rest of the warehouse and find the bolt you want...they will cut it to any length.
Mr. Happy Quilt gave us yellow baskets to collect our "treasures". Then we took our baskets outside in the light....(the weather was beautiful)....and organized our piles of fabric and made the final decisions about our choices.

Beth in her glory!!! We all think we died and went to heaven!!!
More decision making...and then counting and paying our bills. One yard of fabric cost about the same price as a fat quarter in the US. Wow!!! Did we have fun!!! Susan told us that 3o packets of fabric (or 60 yards) weighs 10kg. The normal check baggage weight in Asia is 20kg. Two of us used mileage points and upgraded to business class just so we could check 30kg. Weight was the determining factor in how much we could take home with us. We brought disposable everything so we would not waste precious "fabric space".

The happy shoppers exhausted after making all those fabric decisions. We all stretched our weight limits (carry on bags are also good places to stash fabric packets) and then Mr. Happy Quilt gave us all extra fabric packets as a gift!!!!
Our fabric was very heavy so Mr. Happy Quilt's co-worker took it to our hotel for us. The car was so full of fabric only two passengers could fit. So....the rest of us happily took the train back to......another fabric market!!!! The train ride was just under two hours....it was a very different experience from the Shanghai subway.....WE HAD PERSONAL SPACE!!! What a luxury!
This market is about 10 minutes taxi drive from our hotel. Mr. Happy Quilt has a booth at this market so we went directly to his space to see if we missed anything at the warehouse.

Several booths had quilting supplies and we all found more treasures!!!

We managed to squeeze in a few cultural experiences amid our shopping frenzy...

This is one of the very old (like 5000 years old) gates to the city...very beautiful!

Sights on the streets...

Lots of people crossing the streets...

Canal area with walkways of both sides....this was really pretty! We crossed this bridge as we walked to find coffee and a resting place...

Our bags of fabric were waiting for us at the hotel!!! We could not wait to bust them open and "play" with our fabric.

This is our collection of fabric. Not to worry this is just fabric for three people.....the rest was in the other room with Joanne, Jackie, and Susan.
Think of all the quilts we can make!!

Ah....a well deserved break after all that shopping.

We had dinner in the hotel and then it was back to our rooms to pack and weigh our bags of fabric. Sheryl was a bit over weight so she cut the salvage edges off several large pieces of fabric....Desperate times require desperate actions!!!

You may have read about the protest in Korea a few weeks ago. An older gentleman was unhappy about his retirement wages and set fire to one of the 5000 year old gates. Oops!! This is the spot where the gate lived. They put up this wall while it is being restored.

Stickers anyone??
Sunday morning we walked to another market just down the hill from our hotel. Korea has beautiful gift wrap paper and other "scrapbooking/cardmaking" notions. This market had two places that captured my interest...

Candy shop

Gift wrap...walls and walls of gift wrap

It was stunning paper...some were two sided and others had gold leaf.

Need a tie? The price is 3 for 10,000 Wan. Sounds like a lot of money but it is just $10.

Food in the market

The market looked like markets in Shanghai except they were not smelly and they were a bit cleaner.

Ah....look we could have just bought a bunch of quilts and saved ourselves a lot of time....But....where is the fun in that?

Bottles of ginsing.....and...other organ looking things that we could not identify...

More food for sale...

A bit different from McDonald's...eh?

Okay...here is the most interesting food item I found....the top left is a bucket full of....larva. No kidding...they looked like they had been sprinkled with salt or sugar...I decided not to sample them to find out.