Aekyung Department Store is attached to Guro station (line 1) by a covered pedestrian bridge. Traders, often quite elderly, have set up little stalls on the bridge selling traditional Korean snacks, cigarette lighters and other knick-knacks.
Cross the bridge and you see Seoul’s other face, a shiny modern shopping centre with a food court in the basement, more restaurants on the ground and top floor, a video game arcade and a multi-screen cinema. It’s easy to spend an entire afternoon there.
If you’re a young woman and larger than the average Korean, shopping for clothes at Aekyung can be a frustrating experience. Ignore the young women’s fashion section and concentrate on sportswear, men’s clothing and older women’s clothing. It’s not too difficult to find something simple that can be passed off as an ageless or unisex classic.
The British clothes retailer Marks & Spencer have a small outlet at Aekyung. Prices are significantly higher than in U.K. stores, but I have been told that it is possible to ask the assistant to order larger versions of the garments on display.
Aekyung’s book shop is disappointing for foreigners because it only stocks a very small number of English novels. If you can’t find the right shelf ask the assistant for “Harry Potter in English.” Harry Potter is so ubiquitous that there is likely to be a copy in stock.
The ground floor is dedicated to shoes, handbags, umbrellas, cosmetics and jewellery. Pizza Hut, KFC and Outback Steakhouse all have branches on this floor. Outback Steakhouse is expensive by Korean standards, but if you want a real western-style meal with a glass of wine it’s a good choice.
On the top floor there are Korean restaurants as well as a Chinese with a beautiful interior, an Italian, and a little curry house. The Italian restaurant is very pretty but on my one visit I thought that its pasta sauce tasted cheap.*
The basement offers a typical South Korean shopping mall food court. If you are looking for a bread-based snack there is a Dunkin Donuts and a bakery. Burgers and fries are available at Lotteria and there are stands selling ice cream and fruit juices. A wide variety of warm Korean snacks, often on sticks, are on offer for a low price.
The fries at Lotteria are crisper and less greasy than the ones in McDonald’s on the 5th floor next to the CGV cinema ticket office. Non-Korean speakers can look at the posters on the CGV website for an idea of what might be on at Aekyung.
Film times are displayed on screens above the ticket desk. If you can’t read hangul watch the screens that display full sized posters with the movie’s English and Korean title. English language films are rarely dubbed in Korea unless they’re animations. The cinema staff are helpful and patient with foreigners so they will probably warn you if a film is in Korean.
Tip: Before buying a ticket get a queue number from the little machine attached to the pillar. Put the film title and time on a piece of piece of paper so that you can show it to the assistant. Tickets are allocated to seats, so if you don’t want to sit near the screen draw a square, write “screen” on one side and mark your preferred location with a cross.
Once you’ve had a meal, done some shopping and watched a film there’s not much else to do at Aekyung. If you walk back through the subway station, down the steps, and through the pedestrian underpass that comes up next to the petrol station, you will arrive in Guro’s machinery and tool shopping centre. It’s grey and grimy but it is a good opportunity to go back to that other face of Seoul you first saw on the covered bridge.
*One subway stop further along, at Guil, there is a nice Italian restaurant called “Pizza U.” I think they serve a much better pasta sauce there. When you exit Guil station walk straight ahead until you come to the pedestrian bridge. On the other side of the bridge there is a 7-Eleven convenience store. If you stand with your back to the store you will see a large white apartment complex on the opposite side of the road. Walk into the central courtyard, turn right at the GS25 convenience store and you will see Pizza U with its yellow frontage, tucked into the far corner.
The store in the Aekyung Dept Store that has the furniture in it, what is it called? I’m trying to find a website that I call look up the dining room tables in that store and I can’t find it. Please help me!