Wednesday, May 21st, 2025
I’m taking a bit of a rest day, which included a quick jaunt to a lovely market and a discovery about how to buy fruit!
Last night I had just the beginnings of some sniffles. The kind most people dismiss, but our family medical background and culture encourages noticing and respecting the body’s needs while doing the work of defending against invaders, as it were.
Erring on the side of caution, I moved my all day adventures to mañana and decided to find some fresh fruit!
Imagine my surprise when I picked up a small ripe melon and the woman told me it was 10,000 won! All of the signs said that, and when I tried to buy a small tangerine, I was told the same thing. Putting the fruit back, saying, thank you, and walking on, I was scratching my head and trying to figure out why fruit would be so expensive in Korea?
Then I saw Asian pears and I thought, I'm pretty desperate for some fruit, so if I'm going to spend 10,000 Korean won on a piece of fruit, it might as well be a big giant Asian pear. But! As I stood there holding the single pear in my hands, the woman working there indicated that it would cost me 3000 won. I looked back at the basket that had three Asian pears sitting in it and realized that the 10,000 won was for everything in the basket. Ah ha!!!!
I went back to the woman who was selling tangerines, and I indicated that I wanted to buy just one. She declined. I went back to the woman who was selling melons, and her husband was there, and when I asked if I could buy just one, he shook his head in a rough way and looked a little annoyed.
But his wife stepped up! And she pushed him away, and then she told me it would be 1000 won for one melon in a basket that had 10 melons in it. Voila! The deal was struck, and I will eat fruit tonight!
PHOTOS FROM THE MARKET:
And for my friend and fellow Korean enthusiast…
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