The street seemed like a living anomoly, a contradiction of sorts - Insadong was crowded, but differently to Chongno Street, which is literally a stone's throw away. Chongno Street is a force, the footpath is thin and hordes of people that form the hustle and bustle, pulsate in an endless stream, creating a din of shuffling feet, human voices and the never ending traffic.

Above: A view of Insadong Street. Looking north.

Above: Shop Arts and Crafts Window display.

I stood their for awhile with a friend, wondering what it was about Insadong, that had me basking in tranquil business. A woman strolled by me, she could almost have been a character from a Lucy Maud Montgomery novel, she wore a white cotton dress with lace around the edges, small leather boots and a Panama, decorated with a single flower. Insadong was filled with browsers and site seers, antique dealers and their antiquitous wares, fortune tellers, whistle sellers and candy makers. We walked down further and were approached by a man pedalling hand crafted metal histles in the shape of a bird, for only chon won - 1000 won. We watched him make it sing, and after the demonstration, bought two. We walked further and we notice a woman standing at the door of a calligraphy shop, a gigantic poster brush hung pendulously above her head, she was basking in sunlight. behind her was paper, lots of it, hand made, patterned and plain and of course, brushes for chinese calligraphy - a fine art that is slowly withering today, with the slow suffocation of traditional Confucianist Korea, and its rampant westernisation. We come to a slight bend in the cobbled alley and see to our left a tiny, apparently insignificant lane, which was speckled with antiques and other oriental miscellanea. We turned and meandered down the lane, bickering past the gazers, eyeing bronze teapots, confucianist headwear, Tibetan mantras in infamiliar script, bellows, Buddhas, old fashioned telephones, biscuit tins, old books with worn leather covers and a million other antiquitous fancies that provided my veritable visual feast.

A School Visiting Insadong.

Street Ware.

Kimjangdok: Kim Ch'i Pots

Antiques and Insadong are synonymous. During the Japanese Colonial Period, the Japanese were opening shops all around Insadong, and in the 1920's and 30's, many of these shops were antique shops. These antique shops, eventually began to support a burgeoning trade in antique books. In addition to books, many of the shops, were home to valuable, and often restored, documents. Today many of these documents are national treasures. After independence from Japan at the end of WWII, the street continued to actively trade in antiques; many of which were left behind by the Japanese and kept by Koreans. We walk into one antique shop, and are completely overwhelmed with the array of collectibles, oddities and valuables for sale.

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